


The Deadliest Storm

by Schwoozie



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - Boarding School, Alternate Universe - Still Have Powers, Daddy Issues, Developing Powers, Developing Relationship, First Kiss, Historical, Illnesses, Inspired by a Movie, M/M, Mansion Fic, New York City, Original Character(s), Post-World War I, Post-World War II, Reunions, Time Skips, Touch-Starved Charles, Underage Characters
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-08-29
Updated: 2013-01-06
Packaged: 2017-11-13 03:05:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 27,436
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/498743
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Schwoozie/pseuds/Schwoozie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Interbellum boarding school AU, inspired by the Lowood section of "Jane Eyre".</p><p>England, 1925. In a country where the Great War is a barely-fading nightmare, 12-year-old Charles Xavier finds himself at the Witworm School For Boys. Too old for his age and too young for the world, Charles, lonely and abused, struggles to understand the things he knows that he should not know, as well as fit into a school that languishes under the pallor of war. Despite the crush of people around him, Charles feels displaced; but he cannot shake the feeling that he is meant for more than simply living long enough to forget.</p><p>He doesn’t expect there to be anything he won’t /want/ to forget. After all, from his life so far, there is so little he wouldn’t be better off without.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

As many mornings thereafter would be, the day dawned grey and flat the morn Charles first approached Witworm Hall. It loomed before him a heavy block of stone, the prison of his youth manifest at last. Many of the nights he had spent huddled in his cupboard, listening fretfully for the heavy sound of his stepbrother’s feet, he imagined himself seated not in a fine manor with expansive grounds, but a chamber of stone such as this—it matched more closely the feeling inside him, of anguish without time, of banded iron bars.

He no longer fit in his cupboard, and had not for many years, although he was a bare slip of a boy—at Mother’s many parties, her greatest torment was always to find him a partner who did not loom above him quite so terribly.

He himself was Mother’s greatest torment, he knew, and he also knew that there was nothing he could do about it—she was not meant to be a mother, and he was not meant to be locked indoors.

He stepped out of the car and stood at the institution’s low iron gates—easy enough for an intrepid boy to escape from, but where to? There was desolation for miles, and even warm-hearted farmers would be hard-pressed to take in a Witworm boy—the families who paid into the institution were too powerful, their reach too far, for kindness to hold any sway. Something Charles was used to, at least.

“Here are your bags, Master Charles,” said Mr. Porter from behind him, handing him his two heavy suitcases. Charles was thankful that his arms did not shake when holding them. “Would you like me to walk you to the door?”

“No thank you, George. I’ll be fine from here.”

Mr. Porter gave him a small, sad smile. He did not know why Charles was sent here, but his family had served the Xaviers for three generations, and he never asked when Charles snuck into the garage to read in the backseat of the Ford by the light of an oil lamp, instead of in the library with its plush armchairs and heaving fire.

Charles turned towards the school, twin suitcases in his hands, waiting until the sound of the puttering engine had vanished.

He thought of Mother, probably on her third bourbon of the afternoon; of Kurt, casually flipping through the estate papers he had memorized five years ago; of Cain, strangely forlorn now that Charles had gone, missing the sight of his pale, hated face, knowing he had no one to put his discrepancies on, either for Kurt’s sake or his own. Charles wondered what his stepbrother would do. Probably have his way with the rest of the serving girls, now that Charles wasn’t there to intervene. He never did so if the girl was enjoying it, but he hated the thought of one being forced beneath Father’s roof.

He still thought of him as Father, although he had died so long ago—Charles estimated at sometime around his fourth birthday; Mother wouldn’t speak of it, and he had never seen the gravestone. The one time he asked who the mustached man in his memories was—so intimately twined with the trains under Charles’s bed, the face most known in the shadows of his ceiling—Mother had thrown her half-drained glass at him, and with her raging attracted Kurt to the library, who did not know that Charles had changed the legal papers so he would never bear the Marko name, who had gone to one knee in front of Charles and gripped him by the base of the neck and said, “You want to know who your daddy is, boy? I am your daddy, I was always your daddy, and I will not hear one word of Brian Xavier in this house.”

_I am not in his house any longer_ , Charles thought, walking up the long lane. _And once Mother dies it will not be his anymore. It will be mine, and I will be able to forget this place._

He didn’t expect there to be anything he wouldn’t want to forget. After all, from his life so far, there was so little he wouldn’t be better off without.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

Witworm was not such a hell as its facade suggested: the boys were kind enough, and if the professors were puritanical, it was nothing Charles had not encountered in childhood, and thus learned to circumvent.

Neither, however, was it even the basest home.

Early on it was acknowledged that Charles was far ahead of his peers in writing and arithmetic, but there was a strict rule against any and all things extraordinary—and thus he grew to be thoroughly bored. Staring out the tiny casement windows, he almost imagined missing the torments of his former life—at least his white house had not blended into the dreary landscape as the stones of Witworm did, leeching the color of his skin out through his uniform until what had once been a fair complexion became hardly a wisp. He breathed in and out across the pale expanse of what his life had become, and tried to see what would be thirty years on—and he found the road was empty, devoid even of shadow. He longed for the dark that could swallow him whole.

It was in this interminable night that the whispers began. At first he thought they were merely the phantoms of dream rising as he settled on the edge of sleep, until he realized they were in a tone he had never heard before. And they had _color_ —of steels and browns and earthen greys, but within those planes spanned a cosmos of wonders. They danced for him and as he willed, they stretched themselves into gestures. He trained himself to breathe only when they slowed; the cellophane-stretching of his lungs coming to a cusp was when he understood the sounds most clearly.

He wondered if they came from the same place that told him when Mother needed to be led back to bed, or when Cain was in a tear, or when a serving girl choked on homesickness so hard she could barely breathe. Those too had come to him as colors, but had not intrigued him so strangely.

These were asking for something; they were searching. He pretended they wandered for him.

But every time, on the edge of comprehension, a boy would cough in his sleep or bang about on his way to the loo, and it would be lost. Then Charles would roll on his side and press against the cold stone wall and pretend it too could speak.

** ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *  ~ * ~ * ~  **

When the vertigo of his sleepless nights grew to be too much, Charles would slip from his bed and walk the halls until dawn. He had never needed very much sleep, and the lessons here were so menial he could answer them with half a mind. That, too, was a gift he had always had—he could recall the facts of nearly every topic he had ever studied, and could reason close enough to the answer even if it were unfamiliar. It was questions of substance, of _opinion_ , that tripped up his tongue. He knew he felt something—sometimes he felt too much, so much his pallid skin could burst with it, to reach out in tendrils for one shining, kindly hand—but the words were written in an alphabet he could not pronounce.

It was a typical, howling December night when Charles found himself deeper in the school than he had ever gone, in the sculleries and supply closets frequented only by the servants. He had woken from a dream he had dreamt many times—dashing down the endless halls of the Xavier mansion, opening door after door and always finding Cain on the other side, fist raised to strike—but this time was different. In this dream he could neither see nor hear, and he was not running from Cain, but towards something, someone, whose cries reverberated through him in tides deeper than mere sound waves, nothing so trite and breakable as a physical thing—like the single warm spot in a planet of ice, folding him close.

He lay a finger against a line of grout in the wall, and let his eyes dim even the bare light of the corridor into blackness. Xavier Manor was done up with all the modern accoutrements—if he were there, he would never find himself in such dark as this, not with the harsh glow of a light bulb at every door. The fortress of Witworm was too solid to bother laying wires, and what little light there was filtered beneath several doors along the way, begotten from oil lamps and candles.

He did not need it, though. He stood straight and true, shoulder to the wall, putting one foot directly before the other, listening to the settling of the building and his own soft breaths and the column of fire that smoldered in the pantry.

Charles halted and opened his eyes, pressing closer to the wall, mouth a tight “o” of surprise. That last thing he had not heard with his ears; he heard it as he heard the words in his head, the ones now shouting to retreat before he found trouble, the whisper without a voice that urged him forward step by step.

He came to the pantry door (how he knew it was the pantry he could not say, but he knew it, sure as he knew the lines of his face) and fixed his gaze of the line of light showing from beneath. He could tell from the wavering glow that it was a candle—hastily struck and dripping, most like. This was surely not a teacher, nor a servant, and perhaps not even a student. There was wildness, and rage, in the flickering from beyond the door—nothing in Charles’s experience of England could match it. With bated breath, he pushed inside—

—and came face to face with a pair of feet, clad in the same off-white socks they all wore, five feet off the ground. He looked up in amazement, and recognized the boy—it _was_ a student after all, skinnier than Charles, who never spoke and was seldom in anyone’s company. The little anyone knew was that he was German, and had no sponsor here—the boys joked that he was the Kaiser’s son, sent away in secret after the War so he might subvert English ways. They called him Wilhelm. One December night they locked him outside in the dark of a snowstorm—but he did not rage or cry for help; hours later, Charles looked out his window and saw him standing there still, straight-backed and stern, snow piling in peaks atop his thin hat. Charles quietly informed a professor and went to sleep, thinking ofthe little prince, lost in the snow.

And here he was in the dark in the pantry, balancing on what looked like a floating metal sheet, hand outstretched for a loaf of bread.

“Oh!” Charles exclaimed. He had not expected his voice to ring so loudly, and the boy startled, losing whatever grip had kept him afloat, and crashed to the ground.

Charles closed the door and rushed forward, placing his hands awkwardly, wildly unsure. “I’m so sorry, dammit—pardon me, sorry—are you alright?”

The boy surged up and grabbed his collar, spat some angry German words. “Idiot, what do you think you are doing? You saw nothing, do you understand, you—“ He froze, breath hot on Charles’s cheek. “Someone is coming. Quick, quickly.”

The boy hauled Charles to his feet and shoved him bodily into the crevice behind the pantry shelves, blowing out his candle on the way. Charles settled with his back to the wall, the boy leaning heavily against him, panting into the silence.

“Do you—“ Charles began, but the boy clamped a hot hand over his mouth, pressing their thin chests together.

Charles became aware, in a way he had never been, of how breath entered and left the body—the parts that swelled and the slopes that shrank, the rasp of it against his throat, the heat of it from another mouth. The boy’s eyes met his briefly in the dim light, then turned towards the door as it banged open.

A professor Charles had never met stepped inside warily, hissing in disgust at the mess of scattered food on the floor.

“Who is there?” he barked, stepping around the now-mangled metal sheet. “Boys are not allowed out of their beds at night. Show yourself at once! The longer you wait, the worse your punishment!”

The boy gripped Charles even tighter, as if expecting him to cry out. Charles scowled at his judgment, biting a finger and making the boy look at him. _I would never give you up_ , Charles tried to say. The boy looked halted, unsure; he must have heard, somehow—

Charles looked away just as the professor’s eyes swept across their hiding spot, and then returned. He had found them. The boy tensed, and Charles had the wild thought that he meant to kill the professor rather than be caught.

_He cannot see us, he must not see us!_ Charles thought fiercely, gripping the boy’s sleeve, keeping him still. The professor scowled, opened his mouth to speak— _He must not!_ —then, inexplicably, shook his head.

“Must have been the rats,” he muttered. “Damn creatures, almost as bad as the boys.“ Still grumbling, he took up his lamp and closed the door behind him, once again enveloping them in darkness.

They waited a few tense heartbeats, and the boy was suddenly gone. Charles shrank against the wall, listening to his quiet curses, and was suddenly, inexplicably frightened of being left alone.

“Wilhelm—“

“That is not my name!” he hissed, as suddenly a candle burst to light. It threw harsh shadows over his thin face, looking at Charles through the same shelf the professor had seen them through—or hadn’t seen them.

“I apologize,” Charles said, inching out from behind the shelves. “How did you light the candle without seeing it?”

The boy chopped at the air, deeming the query unimportant. “I was sure he saw us. How did he not see us? What did you do?”

“I didn’t—I just wanted him to go away.”

“I have wanted many people to go away, but that does not mean they listen. Especially when asked nicely.”

“I, I suppose I’ve been the same.”

“Have you.” The boy gave him a flat stare.

“What were you doing here? Did you not eat enough for dinner?”

“What is it to you?”

“I want to know, is all.”

“You ask a lot of questions.”

“You don’t answer any of them.”

“It’s my business!” he growled. He bent down and gathered the scattered food into his arms, tucking it into pockets and a small satchel he had abandoned in the corner. He was not in his nightshirt, Charles realized, nor his uniform—he wore a rough shirt and hardy canvas pants, like a workman.

“Are you running away?” Charles asked, bending to help.

The boy batted him away. “Of course not. Where would I go?”

“I don’t know. I have some money in my bedtable. Maybe it would help?”

The boy froze, meeting Charles’s gaze again in the half-light. “How much?” he asked slowly.

“Ten quid. I think. I’d have to count it.”

The boy’s eyebrows rose incredulously. “You _think_ you have ten quid? What, you have another twenty pounds you might have forgotten about?”

“I don’t ever use it. Mother gave it as an apology, I think, for sending me away. You wait here and I’ll fetch it.”

“I told you, I’m not running away.”

“But if you do—“

“What’s it matter to you!”

“I don’t know. I don’t need it. I want to help.”

Something in the boy’s tension collapsed, and his moving hands stilled. “But _why_?”

“I’ve never had anyone to help before.”

The boy stared at him. Charles felt it almost as a physical thing, that gaze—he wished he had a mirror, to see what it saw. He hoped it was something good.

“Just—let’s just go to bed and forget all this. We’ll go back to not knowing each other, as before.”

“But we still don’t know each other.”

“You know what I mean.” The boy still scowled, but it was broken, somehow, perplexed and staggering. “Just go to bed, _ja_?” The boy stood, shrugging the pack onto his shoulders and blowing out the candle. Charles followed him obediently, looking back once at the metal sheet that glinted in the corner.

The boy halted when they reached the dormitory corridor.

“You’re with the younger boys, yes?”

“Only for a while longer. I’m almost 13.”

The boy snorted, unimpressed. “Then you’re old enough to keep your mouth shut. I’ve killed rats larger than you, _bubi_. If I hear you’ve talked, slitting your throat would be nothing. _Verstanden_?”

“I won’t talk.”

“Good.” The boy looked at him a moment longer, then started down the corridor.

“Wait!” Charles whispered. The boy turned. “What is your name?”

In the dark, Charles could make out the shadow of a smirk. “The young Wilhelm, of course.”

“Please.”

Charles could _feel_ the wheels turning in the boy’s head, slow and methodical, like the gears of a watch.

“Erik. I’m Erik.”

“Charles.” The younger boy smiled; the other’s lip gave a confused kind of twitch, then snapped back into a scowl.

“Remember! _Komprimieren deine lippen_!” he hissed, then turned on his heel and stalked away, for all his temper silent as a ghost.

“I promise,” Charles whispered.

He tiptoed back to bed and slid beneath the covers, tucking his knees inside his nightshirt, against his chest, remembering how it felt to have Erik’s solid weight pressed against him—and then farther back, to the last he held true to another’s arms, with the shadow of trains against the wall.

“ _Erik_ ,” he whispered to the stones, closing his eyes to the edge of sleep, seeing the icy metal of his bed frame like a flame in the dark—a frigid cocoon draped in something not quite like peace—Charles alone beside him in bed, speaking his name as if two words, like the diamond and its setting in one— _Erik_ , more lost in hail than snow, stuck to Charles like a burr to a horse, the hint of promise to a murmured prayer, printed already on the virgin slate of his heart.

As he slipped across the razor’s edge, drifting through the border back into himself, he could swear he heard his own name whispered back.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles and Erik confront each other the day after they meet; neither boy is exactly what the other one expected.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So sorry for the delay in continuing this! I did get the majority of the story written over NaNoWriMo, and my goal is to finish by the end of winter break. I'll be posting chapters as I edit.
> 
> Enjoy!

He came to him the next morning on the breakfast line, looking smaller in his ill-fitting uniform, too wide at the shoulders and too short at the hips. Charles greeted him with a smile, but at Erik’s furtive glances around them, he let it slip from his face.

“Hello, Erik. Did you sleep well?”

Erik seemed perplexed by the question, then proceeded to ignore it. “I will speak to you during study time today.”

“Of course. In the northwest corner of the common room?”

“No. Outside. In the courtyard. There are fewer people.”

“As you wish.” Charles picked up his muffin from the tray, holding it out. “Would you like some?

“No,” Erik said with disgusted incredulity. He stalked away as quickly as he had come.

“What did Wilhelm have to say?” Sean asked as Charles sat at his usual table. Although they were in the same year, Charles had though Sean a class younger until he introduced himself, and even then Charles had doubts. He and his friends were good enough lads, though, and talked enough so Charles could stay quiet.

“His name is Erik, actually.”

“Y’know, I don’t think I’ve even heard his voice before. He’s German, right? My da says Germans grunt, like bears.”

“He doesn’t. He speaks perfectly well.”

“You ought to stay away from him, Charles. I heard he been at five schools before he came here. No parents, a ward of the state. When you heard of a ward of the state being sent to a private school?”

“Perhaps he’s bright. Maybe he earned it.”

“Who ever heard of a bright German? If the Jerries are so smart, they would have won the war. Like that Darwin guy says, right?”

“I don’t think Darwin knew Erik.”

“Who’s Erik?” Alex asked as he swooped in to steal Charles’s muffin.

“And you do? From a few words on the breakfast queue? Charles here was talking with Wilhelm.”

“The beast speaks? I thought Germans grunted—“

“See, that’s what Da said, and he’s been at war for ages so he should know—“

“I’ve shared more words with him than you have,” Charles said, silencing them sharply. “Might we not make assumptions?”

“What’s with you, Charles? He promise to suck your willy if you put in a good word?”

Charles stood abruptly, cheeks flaming, rattling the dishes on the table. “Maybe I see in him a good human being.”

“That would be a yes,” Sean muttered.

“You don’t know what you’re talking about,” Charles said, shifting from foot to foot. “You ought to be ashamed of yourselves for speaking the way you do. How would you feel if you were in a strange country with no one to call a friend?”

“Relax, Charles, we didn’t mean anything by it. It’s what everyone always says, you know?”

“One of the ill effects of cruelty is that it makes the bystanders cruel.”

“Whatever you say. Do you want to sit down and finish your breakfast?”

“I’m afraid I’ve lost my appetite.”

Charles stalked away stiffly, acutely aware of every eye now resting upon him, the confusion and suspicion floating in the air.

 **~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~**  

Charles stood watching Erik for a time before approaching him. There was something irrevocably _foreign_ in his canvas coat and threadbare hat – not more or less so than his ill-fitting suit, but in a different way, a blunter way, like he had freed himself from a picture book. The icy wind bit at Charles beneath his heavy wool, but Erik seemed to hardly mind it – only the hunch of his spine belied any discomfort, and that did not have to come from the cold.

 _Buck up, Xavier,_ Charles thought. _He's as nervous as you are._

Somehow, the thought was not as comforting as it should have been.

“Hello, Erik,” he said, as cheerfully as he could. Erik glared up from beneath his fringe and growled, grabbing Charles by the arm and dragging him beneath the eaves. Charles skidded into him when he came to a stop, and the boy growled again.

“I wish you'd stop doing that,” Charles said, yanking his arm free. “I'm not a sack of potatoes.”

“If only you'd be as silent as one,” Erik muttered.

“You asked me here,” Charles snapped. “I could be reading Kipling in the common room, but you asked me here.”

Erik blinked at him once, twice, then hunched over and muttered at his feet. Charles was beginning to understand why the other boys had such trouble accepting him.

Charles stepped forward and tugged gently at Erik's sleeve until, startled, he let it slide from his pocket and into Charles's hand. His gloves were as raggedy as the rest of him; half of the index finger was missing. Charles clasped Erik's hand between his two palms. He rubbed gently, and blew along their line of knuckles.

“Come inside?” he asked coaxingly. “There we might have a proper conversation.”

For a moment Erik tensed like he wanted to punch him, but Charles didn't move; the tension slowly melted from his body, and he slumped in defeat. As Charles silently towed him back to the side entrance, he found he liked this compliance even less than being manhandled – it spoke of too many dark fates, unspoken and endured.

Erik remained lost in thought until they reached the third landing, upon which he startled, saying, “We are not going to the common room?”

“You said you did not want to be about people; the boys hardly come up here.”

“But the professors –”

“I'll hear if anyone gets close; trust me, my friend.”

Erik ducked his head, and Charles, taking his renewed silence for acquiescence, led him into the quiet room.

The fire had been allowed to burn down to coals, but it was still warmer than the courtyard, and any tension Charles had absorbed from the older boy melted away under the aroma of old books and fine gin. It could be something close to being home, if he abided the fault in his memory. Charles pulled Erik to the sofa before the fire; but instead of taking the cushions, Erik folded himself down to the rug by its feet. Charles hesitated only a moment in joining him, touching Erik's hip gently with his crossed knee, Erik's own pulled tight to his chest. He glared at the fire as if it did him wrong, in dancing so.

“How long have you been here?” Charles asked softly, watching the sharp lines of Erik's face.

The boy was silent for so long that Charles prepared to re-ask the question, when he muttered gruffly, “Four months.”

“And when did you come to England?”

Again, a pause. “Ten years. Before the war.”

“Was your family with you?”

“Why are you asking these things, Charles? I asked you here, didn't I?

“Actually, you asked me to the courtyard. When you acquiesced so easily to coming inside, I assumed you prefer I take the lead.”

Erik looked at him, and Charles was proud he did not turn away. “How old are you, eight?”

Charles scowled, and pulled himself straighter. “I _told_ you, I am twelve.”

Erik snorted. “You look about five, you know. Who cuts your hair, a nanny?”

“Yes, actually.”

“Well. That'll change now, won't it.” They glared at each other. “How long are you here for?”

“I don't know. You?”

“I don't know.”

“Is it why you were sent here? What you can do?”

Erik jolted as if struck. “I can't do anything, what are you talking about?”

Charles rolled his eyes. “I may look _five_ , but I have eyes. Last night. You were flying.”

Erik snorted. “I was not flying, you stupid _schaf_.”

“You _were_. On that piece of metal. I _saw_ you.”

“Is that why _you_ were sent here, then? What _you_ can do?”

Charles shifted, uncomfortable under the older boy's glare. “I can't do anything.”

“ _Blödsinn_. Don't lie to me.”

“I'm not lying, I—I hear things sometimes—“

“What, like voices?”

“—no, no, it's... I can't explain it. It would be like describing a sunset to someone who had never seen the sun. Never seen light."

"That doesn't make any sense."

"Neither does flying. Or whatever you were doing," he said over Erik's protests. "I'm not going to explain myself if you won't. That's not fair."

"Nothing's fair."

"Some things are." Charles stared intently at Erik's turned away face. A great cacophony was building in his heart, but he didn't know how to express it yet. "You don't have to tell me anything, you know. I understand."

Erik glared at him mistrustfully. "Do you?"

"Yes."

"I don't believe you."

Charles shrugged. "Ok."

"And I'm not _going_ to believe you either."

"Ok."

"Just so we're clear."

"Ok."

They sat like that for a long time, Erik facing the fire, Charles facing Erik. The late bell sounded but neither of them moved.

“Metal,” Erik grunted. When he didn't continue, Charles nodded in encouragement. “I can feel metal, and move it, and – and when I'm lonely it's like a sunset.” He scowled at Charles. “If you tell anyone, I'll kill you.”

“I know,” Charles said happily, pressing their shoulders together. Erik's mouth twitched, then settled back into its stern lines. Charles just smiled more widely.

“What do you know about me?” Erik asked.

“You're from Germany. You're an orphan, or a runaway. You're the Kaiser's son, or his nephew, or one of his spies. You're a devil, or an angel. You're –“

“Charles,” Erik said, with less exasperation than he meant to.

“You're Erik,” Charles said, shrugging. “I'd rather hear the rest from you.”

“But you know,” Erik said; where before his gaze had been furtive, now it scalded in its intensity. A shiver ran through the tips of Charles's fingers.

“I...” He licked his lips. “You're lost. In all the ways a man can be lost. You're alone, and scared, and you'd give your kingdom for a smile. You have a good heart, but no one to give it to. Parts of you are missing, but– but they aren't lost, Erik – just hiding behind bad men, and the bad things they've done. There's so much more to you.” Charles leaned forward, swept apart by the urgency of his words. “I can feel it. I can see it. If you could just see, Erik!” Charles took hold of his hand. “You are so much more than you know.”

Erik's face was still tight and skeptical, but he didn't pull his hand away.

“You missed one thing,” he said wryly.

“What's that?” Charles asked, nervous and curious.

Erik hesitated, then reached inside his trousers. Charles blushed crimson and fought to turn away, but then Erik's hand emerged, clutching something. Annoyed with himself, Charles leaned forward to look.

Within a cage of fingers, Erik offered forth a battered disk, the size of a small bobbin, like a coin. It was very old. Strange symbols rose from the surface.

“What is it?” Charles asked, reaching forward. Erik jerked back, then slowly reversed, awkwardly nodding his assent. Charles took the token and ran his fingers across it; he flipped it over, and found different symbols, many more of them. “What does it mean?”

“Mamma gave it to me. I was supposed to have it only when she died, but she– she gave it to me.” Erik said. His voice was very rough. He flipped it back over. “This says,” and he spoke some strange language – not German, but still far from English. “It's meant for protection. Protection from evil.”

Charles turned to the other side, ran his fingers across the phrase like he had once stroked a violin. Erik shivered, and although he did not meet his gaze, Charles felt eyes hot on his cheeks.

“And this?”

A longer breath, this time – and when Erik spoke, the words seemed to come from somewhere deeper than his throat or belly. His hush made the whole world go quiet, and Charles was suddenly terrified that some noise would invade this stillness.

When he finished speaking in his alien tongue, he went silent, staring at the metal in Charles's palm, mouthing some hymn. He seemed to forget Charles was there.

“Erik?” he said softly.

Erik started, then took the talisman back. Finger trembling, he ran it across the words as he spoke them, from right to left.

“Even though I walk through the Valley of the Shadow of Death,” he said, soft, like his last breath on Earth, “I will fear no evil, for You are with me.”

Charles stared at his long fingered hand, already so strong, for all its youth, and closed the fingers once again. “That was beautiful, Erik,” he said softly. “Your mother must love you very much.”

“Yes.” Erik shook himself, as if visibly withdrawing from a trance, and slipped the charm back inside his trousers. There was no inner pocket, Charles noticed. He must solder it to his very skin.

“What is it made of?”

“Copper. It was forged 621 years ago, in the East. The man made it for his wife, who gave it to her child, and him to his child, and her to hers, and now it is mine. I can feel where every one of their fingers touched it.” Erik's face was brightening slowly; his hand, as if directed by someone besides himself, had drifted back to his hip, pressing down in assurance. “When I remember that, I'm not so frightened. No one has held it if not for love.”

Erik blushed and put his face down, but Charles didn’t notice. He was suddenly, irrationally angry. His father had died and left him nothing but a rotting stone tomb. His mother gave him twenty pounds. Who was Erik, to be so harsh and yet hold this boundless love, while Charles had been kind and good and had nothing?

But then Erik was looking at him, fearful and shy and with some unearthly light on his face, and Charles's cruelty melted back into shame. _This is why you have no love_ , Charles thought bitterly. _There is no love for one who begrudges it of others_.

But Erik was still looking at him, with light on his face.

“How do you know that?” Charles asked, looking at Erik's hands instead of his eyes, worried he would see how close Charles had come to hate.

“Some Mamma told me, but most... when I learned it so well I could draw it in the dark, I knew how old it was, and where it was torn from the earth. Mamma told me that magical things, if they're from God, truly, they hold a piece of whoever's held them, and sometimes – sometimes I think I can hear it telling me about them. Like their souls had sunk inside it, to escape bodies that couldn’t hold them anymore. Because they had faith it would happen, it did. That's what Mamma told me. And I believe her,” he said fiercely, as if challenging Charles's disbelief.

But there was none. Charles felt it rolling from Erik in waves, the truth of his words, and for a moment they seemed to flow through the amulet itself, subsumed as it was by Erik's body heat.

Charles smiled, and threw his arms around Erik's neck. The boy went very, very rigid, his hand clamping down on his own hip; but slowly, as he had released the talisman to Charles's care, he brought his hands to Charles's elbows, and then his waist, and then his shoulder blades, digging into his muscles with a sparking pain that Charles gladly pressed back against. _I_ am _alive then_ , he thought in breathless relief. _It is not all shadow. It is not all lost._

Erik's breath was very warm against his neck, and Charles began to feel a strange restlessness he had never felt before – he had been close to it, at night in the pantry, but in his fear he could not have named it. Here though, in the cloying heat of a dying fire, entwined in loneliness in the bowels of the world, Erik's thighs parted around his knee –

But before he could sputter out the words or actions he meant to, Erik was pulling away. He looked vaguely disturbed, and Charles panicked, wondering if Erik could read his thoughts as he read the metal on his hip.

But no, he quickly realized, that was not in Erik. He could no more enter Charles's mind than Charles could move an airplane.

 _Could_ Erik _move an airplane?_ Charles thought, suddenly breathless with hidden wonders. _If there were enough ore, could he move a mountain? If he had the strength, could he bring an army to its knees? With no guns there would be no war, and I could– I could make them forget the need for it. We could end hate, end the possibility for it. He and I. Us. There is an Us now, and together we could._

His smile must have been blinding, for Erik was looking at him strangely again, but the agitation had gone out of his jaw. In their embrace he had accepted something – but he still looked troubled. He looked back over his shoulder at the fire, and picked at a thread on his pants. His mouth moved, but Charles could not hear the words. He leaned closer.

“What did you say?”

Erik glanced at him; in his eyes was a fear too childlike for him, he who had known true terror. But it made Charles ache all the more, that he was yet capable of it.

“What do you know about me?” Erik whispered.

Charles put a hand on his arm. His touch burnt like embers, but Erik did not move away.

“That you are going to be a very good man someday.”

The coals on the grate flickered and died.

Erik stared at him, eyes glinting in the sudden darkness. It was an expression Charles would remember until the day he died – like that of a newborn child, of a man in the vision of his own death, of a hundred-year prisoner collapsing on the door and finding it unlocked; that he could have walked free a million times if he had only the grace left to hope.

Charles would remember this expression until the day he died – just as in his darkest moments he would feel again Erik's fall into him without moving, the choked off sigh in the air they shared as some inner saint rose from its slumber: stretching its wings and sighting the sky and murmuring a blessed  _At last._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The front of Erik's medallion looks like this (the second item view): http://www.etsy.com/listing/103963472
> 
> The back of the medallion looks like this: http://www.etsy.com/listing/73360906


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Charles and Erik explore their powers and each other, but remain unprepared for a coming tragedy.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: contains anti-semitic/anti-German slurs.

" _Fil sheyne meldeh_ –"

" _Meydlekh_."

"Yes, yes, _meydlekh home_ –"

" _Hobn_ , Charles!"

"Patience, my friend, Yiddish is not French."

"You're right, it's much easier - and far more civilized."

"Well, it's a lot of gobbledy-gook to me. May we take a break? We are supposed to be doing our Latin verses, you know."

Erik smiled one of those terrifying grins that were becoming more and more fitting on his face. It had taken him a long time to master more than a smirk, and most of the day he presented his usual, self-conscious scowl. But with Charles, his ire grew less and less.

"Who needs Latin in this age, Charles? We should be moving towards the future, not the past."

"You seemed mighty impressed with Caesar for someone living in the future."

"He was a resolute man," Erik said self-consciously.

Charles put his hand on Erik's arm. "I didn't mean it badly. As a tactician he is unparalleled. His methods are all I disprove of."

Erik seemed ready to argue, but instead sighed and ruffled Charles's hair. "Mighty words for an eight year old."

"I am _TWELVE_."

"Whatever you say, _boytshik_."

Charles rolled his eyes and rubbed his face, to hide his coloring cheeks. "Say the verse again, I can do it."

Smiling secretly, Erik sang quietly, " _Fil sheyne meydlekh hobn gevolt nemen mir, Un fun zey ale oysgeklibn hob ikh nor dikh._ "

Charles watched his lips in intense concentration, opened his own mouth – and shook his head in defeat. "Blast it, but I am failure at languages, while you pick them up in buckets. If you only told me what it meant –"

"Maybe someday, _sheyninke_. You wanted to get on with the Latin –"

"Oh, but you're right, who needs Latin. It is too nice a day for Latin."

"You're growing too sentimental for my taste, Charles."

"What's sentimental about it? I happen to appreciate the small things."

"And I do not? I tolerate you, yes?"

Charles play-acted at being offended, but neither boy bothered to hide his grin. It was indeed a rare day, for all it was early February and snow still covered the ground, sparkling like the chandelier in Charles's foyer, like the menorah Erik's mother polished every week. Erik couldn't stop thinking that some of the sky had leaked into Charles's eyes - or perhaps the other way around, that an angel had come down with a brush and painted the heavens with cerulean drops.

Charles saw Erik's eyes in the stone wall they leaned against – solid and resolute and holding firm against the frost.

"Try your trick again, Erik," Charles said, loathe to force Erik's gaze off his face to the notebook at his side.

Erik glanced around and, as Charles knew he would, he found the courtyard deserted. Smiling secretly at Charles, he pulled a few pence of change from his pockets. He glared at the load in intense concentration, his lips parted and teeth clenched, abandoning his perpetually ordered hair as it swept at his forehead. Slowly, the coins rose from his frayed glove, and with a quiet grunt of effort began to spin like a top above his palm. Charles laughed and clapped, as he always did; Erik, emboldened, made the coins leave their steady circuit to loop around each other in oblong orbits until each seemed to have a mind of its own, zipping about like a swarm of bees. Charles marveled at his control - even as they sped faster and faster, never came the clink of collision, and each flew with a surety of spirit mirrored on Erik's face. Charles loved watching Erik in these moments, when he allowed himself freedom to use his gift – and it was a gift, Charles knew it, even if it must be kept secret. He did not want his friend to be ostracized even further.

He was now spinning the coins in an orbit around his head, face scrunched in concentration, for it was much harder to control what he could not see - when Charles felt a tickle of awareness in the back of his skull.

"Erik!" he said, more frantically than he meant to, and Erik lost control in his surprise, the coins raining to the ground and forming tiny rabbit holes in the snow around him.

"Why did you do that, Charles, I was doing so well –"

“Oi, Kaiser! What're you doin' in our yard for?”

And in those words Charles's Erik was gone, subsumed into a figure at once rigid and hunchbacked, defiant and beggingly submissive. Charles quickly stepped between Erik and the encroaching figures, and gulped - they were boys from Erik's own year, and large for their age at that. Erik could have fit twice inside each of them, and they loomed above Charles, the trio walking in a triangle like a flock of geese filled with ill intent.

"Leave him be, he is as free to be here as the rest of us."

"Oh look," said the boy to the right, "Wilhelm's letting his girlfriend do the talking for him. I guess if you can beg around a dick you got prime oral skills, don'cha?"

Erik surged forward, shouting, "Say that a little closer, you fucking prick!" and Charles barely held him back; it was more the fact of his resistance than any pretensions to force that stymied Erik's rage. He rocked back on his heels, grinding his teeth as if chewing through a concrete block; Charles heard crackling in the snow that did not come from their movements, and from the cover of his body he touched Erik's hand, the one spread-fingered and split-veined as it called to the coins beneath the snow. The rattling stopped, but slowly.

"Listen, if you don't want us here we will go inside, it is no trouble."

"Charles –"

"I am getting cold anyway."

The larger boys looked at each other and sniggered, looked at Charles and sniggered, and Erik stepped forward to stand with one shoulder in front of his friend.

"I'm not leaving if they –"

"Erik. I'm cold."

They said these words with gazes equally focused on their antagonists; neither looked at the other, but their focus was entirely bent on an internal struggle of wills – then Erik glanced down at the proud, aristocratic brow, the confidence of spirit that flowed from his frail shoulders and breakable neck, and with shame was suffused in the submission Charles always inspired in him.

"Aye, too cold for a pair o' pansies! Oi, how do dicks taste, Wilhelm? A twink like that's gotta be made of sweet cream. Bet it feels good to swallow that fine English custard, ya filthy Yiddy-Kraut!"

"Don't look back, Erik, ignore them," Charles whispered forcefully, taking the opportunity of Erik's blocking body to pull him along by the sleeve. He didn't understand most of what the boys were saying, but he knew Erik was hurt by it; at their final words he flinched as if branded by a whip, and leaped after Charles in an unthinking double step before he regained the presence of mind to be angry. But he still followed him, biting his lip so hard Charles felt the pain in his own flesh.

Once they had entered the school, however, Erik's gift grabbed Charles by the belt buckle to stutter him in his step; he seized Charles's wrist and dragged him bodily to the ground floor library, hustling him deep into the stacks before rounding on him. He was resplendent in his fury, and for a moment Charles's breath was taken with the glorious ferocity of it.

Then, of course, he felt the earth shaking power of that anger and its utter focus on _HIM_ , and in remembrance of times past he shrank instinctively into himself. Erik took a menacing step forward and Charles's hands flew up and he uttered a small cry. Erik froze, stricken. Anger filtered back into his expression, but it was tempered now, tinged with frustration, regret, and, to Charles's horror, an obliterating flood of shame.

"Charles, you – you don't think I'd actually –"

"Of course not," Charles reassured him quickly, straightening and trying to regain a winning smile. "I'm glad you came away with me, Erik, thank you."

A flash of the old anger came back, and it took all of Charles's will and trust not to shrink back against the book cases. "As if I had a choice in the matter!" Erik spat. "You moved me just as I moved those coins!"

"I never –" Charles gasped, utterly struck, "I would never do that to you Erik, you must believe me, I did NOT do that!"

"How would you know!" Erik exploded; Charles was frightened again, but Erik did not abate at the signs of it. "I did not feel my hold on those coins until you touched my wrist, but how could I touch you when your very LACK of control held me bound? You think I would have left them with their filthy _shiksa_ words if you did not compel me?"

"But it might not have been, Erik," Charles pleaded, "You might have seen I was right, that this was the best course, that it was best –"

"So after a month, you claim to know me better than I know myself!"

"Of course not," Charles whispered. "I only –" and he stuttered to a stop, suddenly absorbed in the terrifying, horrifying, unthinkable thought – that Erik was right.

He looked up after a long time to see Erik staring at him, palms open against his thighs, shame flooding across his features, but Charles could not conjure the words to comfort him. And if he did, what if it were not the words at all, but this – this THING inside of him, that acted without his knowledge or consent and was as much a part of him as his breath and yet a being entirely apart from the Charles Xavier he thought he knew; something sinister, of malcontent, a monster that made him a monster too–

His tears were muffled by Erik's warm chest as he pulled them together gruffly, clutching Charles with a ferocity that belied his own tears threatening to spill.

"Don't listen to me, _sheyninke_ , please don't listen; you are stronger than me, and I resented you for a moment, but I don't anymore, I promise."

"Don't say that, Erik," Charles mumbled, "You may hate me if you wish, I don't mind."

Erik pulled away to look at him, shocked. "You want me to hate you?"

"Never!" Charles said, much louder than he intended; the word echoed down the walls of books, like a repeating raven. "But always, I'd always rather you hate me than yourself."

"Does it have to be one or the other?" Erik asked, looking immensely troubled.

"I would hope not," Charles said, forcing a wet chuckle. "But if you have the choice – yes, I would have your hate. I would want it. Especially for this."

Erik made an aborted gesture, as if he wanted to take Charles against himself again, but instead he returned his hands to his sides. "Did you understand all they were saying?" he asked.

"Not all of it," Charles admitted, flustered. "But I know it upset you," he whispered. Erik understood he meant this disturbance as one deeper than what the other boys could have seen.

"Let us sit," Erik said softly. He waited for Charles to slide himself down before following suit, folding himself to the floor in one fluid movement.

"You have not told me," Erik said slowly, "Did your father die in the war?"

Charles froze, stock still, his heart beating a crescendo. "When did I say he died?"

"You have mentioned your step-father, I assumed –"

"He died. Not in the war," Charles said, and then fused his lips shut.

Erik looked like he wanted to delve further, but let it off. "I always wondered, you see, since you had no objections to where I come from."

"Erik, even if he had fought, it wouldn't have been you that killed him. That's too silly to think of."

Erik scoffed. "Silly for you, maybe. Your naiveté is astounding sometimes, Charles." He ignored the hurt on his friend's face, but peered at him closely. “Do you understand why people hate us?”

“I... I understand, but it doesn't make sense,” he said slowly. “I know that people are scared, and angry, and anger makes you do things you wouldn't otherwise, but... even the Kaiser is a person. I'm sure he feels sad when he hears what people here call him. And Germans died just the same as English did. Horrible things happened, because that's what war is, but it isn't so simple as bigotry. It's an insult, I think, to the men who died to reduce their sacrifice to something so infantile.” Charles looked at Erik's unmoving face and laughed nervously. “I'm just blabbing on, aren't I?”

“You are far older than your years, Charles,” Erik said softly. A great warmth spread through Charles's body, as if he had been submerged in a warm bath. Unbidden, he stretched his hand out and touched Erik's knee with is fingertips; the older boy grasped his fingers and held them fast, stroking along his knuckles. Something deep inside of Charles shivered at the touch, at the way Erik's eyes followed his fingers, at their utter isolation in the towering stacks. The feeling frightened him, for surely the world remained beyond the confines of their bodies, and with the world came the chance of loss – Charles suddenly wished he could be inside Erik's body as well as his mind, climb inside his skin and see the world through his stormy grey eyes, tie their intestines into Jacob's ladders and caress his heart with every beat of his own. Charles longed to be subsumed.

Still touching his knuckles, Erik said, “Why haven't you asked me again what I was doing the night we met?”

Charles was slow to respond; he felt sluggish and disconnected from his body. “I assumed you would tell me if you wanted to, and you wouldn't if you didn't.”

Erik snorted softly. “For a child with boundless curiosity, you are strangely lackadaisical about human nature.”

“It's not about human nature, it's about you.” Erik's fingers slowed. “You're more important than that.”

“Well,” Erik said, clearing his throat and refusing to meet Charles's eye, “Be that as it may. You never asked. I wanted you to.”

“I'm sorry,” Charles said. “I didn't want you to think I was intruding.”

“Not at all.” Erik raised his eyes at last and skewered Charles with a gaze that took his breath away. “I want you to know me,” he said, with a desperation that frightened Charles. “I want you to know so there's something left.”

“Left where? What do you mean?” Charles asked.

“I...” and Charles was shocked to see tears gathering at the corners of Erik's eyes. He shook his head harshly, looking angry. “I don't want to talk about this.”

“Please, Erik,” Charles said, shifting their hands so Erik's was now clasped in his. “I want to know you too. That's all I want.”

Erik's mouth opened and closed a few times, and he swallowed harshly as a rebellious tear rolled down his cheek. “Germany used to be good to us. Papa's parents were professors at the _Universität_ Heidelberg. Mamma wanted to be a teacher. We never had much, but we had something. We were good people, good Jews – we went to synagogue and obeyed the Sabbath and paid all our taxes. But, as I grew up, things started... changing. Or maybe I was changing, was noticing and understanding things I ignored before. But one day Papa went to work and didn't come home. And Mamma...” Erik swallowed again, his throat fluttering around half-hidden words. Charles clung to his hand, frightened himself of what his friend would say.

“Erik?”

“She was sad, and stopped going to school. We moved to a house that smelled like fish in the summer and rotten meat in the winter and I hated it; but she always told me to hold on for one more winter, because, she said, like it or not, there comes spring. She... she started walking to Frankfurt, to go to the government buildings and moneylenders' offices. Sometimes she wouldn't come back for a week and I'd have to go to the neighbor's for food. But she always came back with money and fresh beef. And I didn't mind that she smelled like someone else, like something unclean, because she was home and I wouldn't, I wouldn't have to go to the morgue like she did for my Papa. I always slept in her bed with her when she came home, even when I got too big to be with my Mamma she didn’t want to let me go. She'd sing to me, she'd...” Erik looked at Charles shyly. “The song I was teaching you, it... she would sing that to me. Sometimes she would be asleep but she would still be singing.”

“What happened to her?” Charles asked softly.

“Nothing, but... we knew war was coming. Everyone did, and Mamma couldn't bear... she wouldn't have lived if she lost me. She had been with one man for a few months; he was very rich, and she was able to... persuade him. To get me to England. To find a place for me.”

“Did you want to leave?”

“No,” Erik said. “She did not tell me her plans. She took me to the train one morning, and told me we were going on a trip. She gave me a package of food and a letter and told me she was going to the toilet but the train left and she wasn't there.”

Through the clammy warmth of Erik's hand, Charles could almost see through his eyes – _his Mamma standing tall but bent, looming through natural height but collapsed inside the cracking frame; the sallow, slackened pose of one who used to be beautiful. Being pulled against her until he couldn't breathe, the whispers of “_ Schatzi, mein schatz, ich liebe dich mehr als luft, meine süße _,” a growing pain in the pit of his stomach that he could not name, not with her familiar, milky warmth suffusing him, her once-beautiful eyes wrapping him in wool and down._ Charles understood, then, why Erik held his hand like he feared letting go – he still lay awake at night wondering if he had had a little more strength, had shown a little more love or courage or been a better son or a better man or if he had raised his father from the dead like Jesus did for Lazarus and they could live as a complete being again, he could have made her stay.

Erik's grip on Charles was now knuckle-white; wordlessly, Charles slid over to sit by his side, putting an arm around Erik and pulling his hand into his lap. Erik pressed his temple to Charles's forehead ferociously, as if trying to climb inside and so shed his own miserable skin.

“What did the letter say?” Charles asked softly.

“What she was doing. And why. And that she loved me, and...” Erik swallowed and said no more. Charles didn't push. There were some words that struck too deep, that would unravel you if pulled apart. “She said that after the war she would send for me. But she hasn't.”

“Maybe she has, but the post lost the letter.”

“Her man could have done it,” Erik snarled, and Charles was shocked by the disgust in his voice. “He's rich as Crassus, he could have done it. He could have gotten Mamma out too, along with me, but he was greedy. He wanted her where he could keep her. He knew she still thought of Papa, and he didn't like that at all.”

“Why not, though? You can love more than one person, right?”

“Not like that,” Erik said harshly. “That's once. That's special. Besides, he never wanted her love. He didn't need it.”

“I don't understand,” Charles said.

Erik looked down at him, and Charles again felt that flood of warmth that left him giddy and terrified all at once.

“Sex isn't about love, _schatz_ , it's about power.”

“That's not true,” Charles said stubbornly, shifting where he sat.

Erik looked at him compassionately and ruffled his hair. “You'll see that I'm right, someday. The world isn't as pretty as you want it to be.”

“It's not about being pretty, it's about... being fair.”

“Charles, that's the grandest illusion I have ever heard.”

Charles looked away from Erik, deeply troubled. He had always clung to a belief of the equality of the universe, that by being good and helping others someday he'd be repaid in kind. That sex wasn't the nameless, faceless bestiality his fellows spoke of in barely concealed whispers, but a moment when you know someone deeper than you know yourself, when skin and thought and life become something inseparable.

But Erik knew more about the world, about life; he must be right.

But he couldn't be.

"Anyway," Erik said, clearing his throat. "I sneak into the rector's dining hall and steal newspapers, when I can. No one here knows, the state they left Germany in." A dark cloud passed over Erik's face. "They are starving in the street. Decent, hard working people, families - and when I see good food being used to feed such spoiled, ignorant, petty boys…"

"So that's what you were doing? Getting food for your Mamma?"

"I don't know where she is," Erik said softly. "I tried calling home once, to the mayor of our village - he is a good man, he leant Mamma money when she was sick, when no one else would - I phoned him but he didn't know where she'd gone. So I send him food that is going to waste here. I know he will use it well."

"That is a good thing you're doing Erik."

"Is it?" Erik barked a laugh. "You know, every time I've done it, I've hoped to get caught. Not floating in the air, you understand," he said ruefully, "but caught."

"But you'd be expelled," Charles said, perplexed. "They'd put you in another school. Or on the street."

"That's what I wanted," Erik said softly. "Because once I'm gone, maybe I could find Mamma again. I've never – I've been at six different schools, you know. Sometimes they expel me for stealing, but usually fighting." An ugly grin spread across Erik's face. "I did not always start them, but I always finished them."

"Erik."

Erik turned on Charles, irritated. "I did not have you to counsel your thrice-damned patience, Charles. If you were not always by my side, I would have been on my way long ago."

"You can still leave," Charles said. "I'm not keeping you here. I… I suppose I could," Charles said, and, amazingly, Erik smiled, "but I never would. You know that, don't you?"

Erik gripped Charles's hand anew, and raised it to his lips. "I know," Erik said softly. "But I want to stay now. There's nowhere I'd go without you."

"Nor I," Charles whispered, tears gathering at the back of his throat. He thought his thanks at Erik the best he could, imagining his body filling with liquid gratitude and flowing in a tumbling river across their joined hands – and by the wonder on Erik's face, he must have felt it. Then, swiftly, as if he were racing the inhibition of his own mind, Erik leaned over and kissed him on the mouth. He pulled back quickly, embarrassed, and sat with his arms around his knees, staring furiously at his own feet. Charles sat and blinked dumbly for many moments before a soft smile spread across his face; when Erik peeked across at him, the smile grew, and slowly it was replied to in kind. Charles shuffled over and snuggled close, folding himself around Erik's lanky form, and wished to all the Gods he knew that this promise would be kept.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

It was a week and a day before Charles fainted in Mathematics.

He woke wracked in such shivers that the bed danced with them, an ache in his limbs that told him he had not moved for many hours. He tried to call out, but the muscles of his throat rasped together like sandpaper, and all that emerged from his cracked lips was a pathetic sort of whine. He whimpered softly and squeezed his eyes against the pain in his limbs.

It was then that he became aware of an argument somewhere nearby. He could not be in the infirmary, because there he would be able to hear the words clearly; here he heard naught but a dull cadence of fury. But he'd know that voice, sharp and clipped and exquisite, anywhere.

"Erik, don't," he rasped, struggling to sit up, and was hit by another wave of dizziness. He must have fainted again, for he came to with a jerk when the shouting got louder; he could distinctly hear the harsh syllables of German words echoing down the corridors. The metal of Charles's bed began to creak.

<<Erik>> he thought desperately, mind swimming like a drunk, desperately trying to reach him. <<Erik, please, I'm alright. Don't get yourself in trouble, not for me. I'll be better soon, I'll be with you again.>>

Charles was panting with the effort it took to direct his thoughts, but from the sounds of it, Erik was calming down. Choking noises that sounded horribly like sobs drifted through his ears.

"Erik," Charles whispered again, squeezing his eyes against tears his parched body could not afford, then doubling over as a back-breaking coughing spell crunched him in half. He came out of it sobbing, wincing anew as each involuntary cry sent spikes of pain through his chest and head. Eerie visions danced before his eyes as the ceiling splintered and fell away. He closed his eyes once more, mouth opening and closing like a goldfish, praying that someone would bring him a glass of water, a breath of fresh air, a hacksaw to sever his screaming limbs.

No one came. Night was falling.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

Charles woke with a gasp and the blessed relief of a cool cloth on his forehead. In the dim light, through crusty eyes, he could see nothing, but the overcoming concern and helplessness in the air around him could only mean one person.

"Erik," he gasped again, flailing out a hand and grasping his sleeve, wincing when the contact sent thorns up his arm. "Erik, how -"

"Shh, Charles, shh. Here, sit up, I brought you some water."

"Bless you," Charles whispered, tears leaking from his eyes at the twin pain and comfort of Erik's hand warm on his neck. It took him a long time to finish the glass, and even then he was not satisfied - but it was enough to have someone with him, to have Erik with him, that he asked for no more.

"Why has no one else come?" he asked as Erik ran the cloth across his cheeks, guided only by a touch in the dark. "The nurses –"

"They've been busy," Erik said in a low rumble. "You were only the first. The whole school's been dropping like flies. They just –," and Erik stopped, seemingly not of any choice, but because his throat rebelled and he could not continue.

"Someone's died?" Charles asked.

Erik's silence, the stillness of the cloth, told him everything.

Charles swallowed, and reached again for Erik's hand. "Lie down with me, please. I don't want to be alone."

"Won't it hurt –"

"I don't care, I want you."

Erik hesitated only a moment before slipping out of his shoes and climbing beneath the covers. Charles flinched when their contact pressed his clothing against sensitive skin, and Erik made to move away, but Charles pressed fiercely back, whimpering at the pain but needing Erik more than breath. Erik seemed to understand this, for he gripped him tightly, burrowing his face into the nape of Charles's neck, mindless of his sweat soaked hair. As Charles acclimated to his touch, he felt himself relax; Erik's concern and ferocity and need poured across every inch their bodies touched and even the air between, and Charles's shivers slowed as a blanket far warmer than fleece gathered about his shoulders.

"You aren't going to leave me," Erik said fiercely, his lips dragging where they lay across Charles's skin. "I found you and you're mine and I'm not letting anyone take you away from me."

"Not even God?" Charles asked, laughing weakly.

"Especially not Him. You'll be well soon, and I'll take you away from here. I'll take you home," Erik gulped, and Charles knew he did not mean Charles's own, "and you'll meet Mamma, and she'll make us matzoh ball soup and knishes and… she'll love you, Charles, I know it. She would love a second son."

"And I would be your brother?"

"You _are_ my brother."

They lay clasped in silence for a long time, Charles lingering in the drifting cadences of Erik's thoughts, the boy's breathing soft behind him.

"Do we get it from God, Erik? What we can do?" he whispered at last.

Erik thought for many moments before replying. "I don't know," he said honestly. "God and the devil can be one and the same. In me, I've thought… but no, Charles, Satan hasn't touched you."

"Mine is more evil than yours, Erik," Charles whispered, his breath stuttering in his chest.

Erik's head stirred against his neck. "What do you mean?"

Charles felt himself again at the edge of a great chasm, and was all at once swept apart by a surge of vertigo. His mouth opened and closed but out came only a choking; Erik stroked his forehead and kissed his temple and his cheek but the words still wouldn't come. They were locked too deep; if Charles unleashed them he would fly apart.

"I love you, Charles; you know that, don't you? You can tell me anything, you could do anything and I will always love you."

Instead of freeing him, Charles felt Erik's words like shackles. He thought so now, didn't he; so many had looked at Charles's girlish face and beautiful smile and for a moment they had loved him; but to a one they had been lost; Charles had lost them.

Erik thought so now, and Charles couldn't bear the thought of disproving him. Not him.

"They were frightened," he whispered, deciding on the half truth, the one less bitter. "Sometimes when I dreamed, the whole house would wake screaming. I – I broke my leg and my step-brother couldn't walk for weeks." _Only the lesser, please God, please don't let him ask for more._ "Mother was never affectionate, but by the end she wouldn't even be in the same room as me – and when she married – Kurt didn't like me, even worse than Mother didn't. He only waited for the estate papers to go through before shipping me off." Charles laughed ruefully, and Erik, bless him, ignored when the laugh lapsed into coughing. "He doesn't know, though. I found a lawyer of my own, and he changed the name from Kurt's to mine. He'll never own any of it. When Mother dies it will all belong to me."

"Will you bring me there, then?" Erik asked.

"You don't want to go there."

"I want to see where you grew up. You might be sad for a while, but I'll make it better. We'll make it good again." Erik forced a laugh. "I'm guessing it's a big house?"

"Yes. The only blessing I got. If no one was looking for me, I could be alone for days."

"That's horrid for you," Erik whispered, and Charles nearly cried for how well he knew him.

"It was better than the alternative," Charles whispered back.

"It won't be empty again," Erik said confidently. "I'll bring Mamma, and Mayor Heinrich, and my cousins in Nuremberg, and we'll be a family all there together. Mamma won't need the man again. We'll use your mother's money and we'll make our own home, forever, as God wills. Would you want that, Charles?"

Charles, throat closed, physically could not speak to answer him. But Erik understood.

“Come, _mein schatz_ , sing with me,” Erik murmured. “Then sleep.”

 _Bay mir bistu sheyn,_  
 _Bay mir hostu heyn,_  
 _Bay mir bistu tayerer fun gelt._  
 _Fil sheyne meydlekh hobn gevolt nemen mir,_  
 _Un fun zey ale oysgeklibn hob ikh nor dikh.  
_ _Fun zey ale oysgeklibn hob ikh nor dikh._

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

"Please don't leave me, Erik."

"I won't. I promise. Don't you leave ME."

"I promise."

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~**

A day and a night and they came for him.

Charles tried for the rest of his life to bring that struggle into sharper focus – the screaming of his fevered limbs as they dragged him from the bed, from Erik's clutching arms; the crash as book after book tumbled from the shelves, as basins were thrown, as the very windows shattered from the strain of their twisting panes; the shouts inside his head and out that brought his mind to its knees, flailing in the dark, looking for the anchor it had been sundered to for a day and a night that now was yowling, blaring in alarm and fear –

The one thing he could remember, that he wished he could forget – a last glimpse of Erik's face, twisted in rage and despair and <<you promised Charles you promised>> as he screamed himself hoarse and called down the heavens and the door swinging shut, until all that was left was the howling in his head as Mr. Porter drove him the long drive down the lane.

_** End of Part I ** _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The song Erik sings for Charles is the original Yiddish version of "Bei Mir Bist Du Schön", which was popularized by The Andrews Sisters in the late '30s. The verse in this story is translated thus:
> 
> To me, you are lovely,  
> To me, you are charming,  
> To me, you are more precious than money.  
> Many pretty girls wanted me for a spouse  
> and among them all, I chose only you.  
> Among them all, I chose only you.


	4. Beginning of Part II

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Spring 1946, New York City. Charles has spent 10 years running from his past, and for the most part he has succeeded; but the world is changing at a breakneck pace, and Charles is running out of track.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for flippant discussion of the Holocaust.
> 
> Also, if you find anything offensive in Raven's origins, please let me know - I thought it would be an interesting way to approach her character, but if it's problematic I can change it.

Charles's face was wet from where the underside of her breast had sweated during the night. He raised his head and gazed bemused on the brown body stretched beneath him, rising and falling with snorting sighs. He noted the marks on her rounded stomach, circling her waist, perfect transfers of his fingers and hipbones. He desperately wanted a cigarette, but he didn't want to offer her any. 

They had been too blown to shut off the radio before tumbling into bed, and it sat in its corner, upbeat female voices singing tinnily through the crackling signal. 

_It's such an old refrain, and yet I should explain  
_ _It means I am begging for your hand_

Charles scowled and dragged himself from the bed, clicking it off with a sigh. The familiar first waves of nausea began rolling over him, and he pushed them down with a shot of gin. He hadn't drunk beyond his means the night before – he could still recall snippets of conversation, leaning to breathe against her sardonic ear, the sweet sound the mattress made when he bounced his hips just right – but these memories could be from any number of nights, and he didn't dwell on them – just whacked the radio and poured out another shot.

Someone tapped politely on the bedroom door, and he had his hand on the knob before recalling his nakedness. He grabbed his dressing gown from where it lay, flung across an armchair. The room was somber enough he didn't bother to tie it, and placed his hand back on the door.

“I'm sorry to bother you, Master Xavier,” his butler whispered, looking Charles resolutely in the eye, although they spelled his actions as clearly as his body. The bloodshot lines wouldn't fade until his headache did, but the blues of his irises were all the more brilliant for it.

“That's quite alright, Mr. Bridges. How may I help you?” he asked, louder than necessary. The bed creaked and grumbled, and Charles wished for a moment that he had left the radio on.

“A telegram for you, sir, from Derbyshire.”

“This couldn't wait until I came for breakfast?”

“It is three in the afternoon, sir, there is no breakfast to wait for.”

“Nonsense, if there is one thing I cannot abide it is missing breakfast. Bring in some egg and biscuits, I will lunch later.” He took the proffered envelope and made to shut the door.

“And for the young lady?” the butler asked in a strained voice. Charles felt a slice of pity for him, but it was quickly overwhelmed by irritation.

“Just her coat, she'll be off soon.”

“Very well, sir.”

Charles tossed the telegram onto his desk, and swigged straight from the bottle before tossing himself atop the coverlet. The girl woke with a startled snort, then moaned loudly.

“Come off it,” she mumbled into the pillow, “dini't your mother teach you how to treat a lady?”

“Oh, you wouldn't want any of what my mother taught me,” Charles said, snaking a hand under the covers to grab her bottom. She tried to swat him off, but he sunk his teeth into the flapping skin of her arm, grinning widely. She jerked the limb away and clapped a pillow around her ears.

“You're an insufferable git,” he just barely made out. “I don't know why I even talked to you.”

“Because I bought you more liquor than you could drink sociably in a month. How else would you meet men nowadays?”

“By listening to my mother and going to church,” she muttered, heaving herself up so Charles dropped to the mattress with a bounce. He lay back with his hands behind his head, unmindful of his open robe, and she stood and stumbled around, looking for her clothes. He watched her disinterestedly for a few minutes before giving in and grabbing a pack of Camels. He lay back with the tube dangling from his lips, puffing towards the ceiling. He could do with a wank already.

“Aren't you going to walk me out?” she asked, standing by the door in her tacky 10-cent dress. In the light of day, a vein twitching in his temple, he was supremely unaffected by her.

“No,” he said, looking back at the ceiling. 

“Then how do I get out?”

“Start with the door. Even an average mind should have no trouble with the rest of it.”

She scoffed loudly. “I hope you're not expecting to see me again.”

“Don't worry, darling,” he said, closing his eyes, “I don't expect much from anyone.”

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *  ~ * ~ * ~**

"Charles, darling, come here, I've saved you a seat!"

Charles wove his way through the countless tables of glitzy chatter to reach Raven, her blonde hair perfectly coiffed and draped with sapphires, where she sat with a group of their mutual acquaintances. 

The Stork Club was the latest of Charles's haunts, more for the gin than the company – the nightly crowd reminded Charles far too much of the nightmarish parties of his childhood, spent hiding in corners as guests he'd never seen in his life cooed over how old he'd grown, their insipidity and lies and weavings of malcontent giving him a headache that lasted for days. Now he could push those grievances back into little more than a dull roar, and even less than that once the drink was flowing. Besides, it pleased Raven to parade herself past the world's most beautiful people while decked in her finest; an advantage she would never have had, if not for Charles.

After much shoving and a little mental nudging he reached her table and kissed her exaggeratedly on the cheek. "My dear, don't you look absolutely ravishing this evening. I might have to pull you away early for the effect you're having on me."

She made a show of wiping her cheek before giving in to her instincts and jumping up to hug him. He returned it wholeheartedly, burying his nose in her hair. It was a testament to their friendship that Raven didn't reprimand him for mussing her curls.

“I do believe this is the only woman in New York you have not gone to bed with, Charles.”

“Only woman on the continent, actually, and not for lack of trying.” He kissed Raven on the cheek, and her companion on the hand. “ _Enchanté, mademoiselle._ ”

“You are really the most egregious flirt, Mr. Xavier, I don't see how you haven't been challenged to a duel yet.”

“Who says I haven't? All you know is I haven’t lost one.”

“Debatable. You must have lost something if you're willing to show yourself in public in this travesty. You look like a flamenco dancer, and that is not a compliment.”

Charles fingered his dark blue lapel, grinning mischievously. “I'll show you something else in private, Mrs. Vanderbilt.”

Gloria whacked him on the arm as he settled into his seat. “It is Miss again, Mr. Xavier, and you know it.”

“Not for long, I should hope. I've been so very lonesome of late, a wife would do me good.”

“The last thing you need is a wife, Charles.” Raven reached over and took a sip of his champagne. “I can't imagine any respectable woman would seriously put up with you for more than five minutes.”

“And whom have I known for ten years?”

“Well, I'm hardly respectable.”

“You are the most respectable of all.”

“Only through your influence, which is not saying much.”

“Anyone who says I lack in decorum will soon have a face stuffed with lobster and a bladder full of cognac. Speaking of wine, what is this sop we are drinking? _Garçon_ , your finest gin!”

“Really, Charles? It's hardly seven yet.”

“I might as well get a head start.”

“Let him be, Miss Darkholme; as you well know I never have my first drink after five.”

Raven sighed dramatically, and turned to the man on her other side. “You really are a terrible influence, Humphrey. Now when is your friend coming? For all the soldiers returning from war, I don’t seem to have met many.”

“You should have told me, Raven, several of my good Harvard friends are back sporting battle wounds and tales of bravery. You should know better than to go to other people for help.”

“You mean I should know better than to go to _you_ for help, which I do know, thank you very much. I've been enjoying respectable company these days, I've little need of you.”

“Now don't hurt the poor man!” Gloria cried, petting Charles's hand.

“On the contrary, Gloria, it is refreshing to be countermanded.”

“You would not say so if it were a regular occurrence.”

“Well, it is not, and so I celebrate! Ah, Humphrey, is that your fellow there?”

Indeed, coming towards them was a very broad man ensconced in army greens, dozens of medals gleaming across his hefty chest, and thin, crabby lips pursed tightly beneath a pair of voluminous mustaches. Charles settled back and observed as Humphrey shook his hand and made the introductions, the man (Colonel Honeycutt, direct aide to General Patton) standing stoically by his side, lips fighting each other for dominance. Something about him made Charles shift uneasily; it might have been the depth of Raven's curtsey, revealing far more bosom than was necessary or indeed proper for a woman of her stature; but Charles knew himself well enough to understand that was not the full case. Something in this man was rotten.

“And this is Mr. Charles Xavier, son of the financier of the entire Allied army.”

“Step-son, actually, and I'm sure Miss Vanderbilt deserves more credit than I.”

“Nonsense, nonsense, I deserve none at all. And you are far richer than I, Charles, in charm if not in value.”

“It is good to know you think me so, Gloria. Colonel, how do you do?”

“I have heard a great deal of you, Mr. Xavier,” Honeycutt said, shaking Charles's hand in his massive, hairy paw. “It is always good to meet a fellow patriot, even one who serves an archaic regime.”

It was only years of interacting with those he did not like that kept Charles from being taken aback. The insult was delivered in the same jovial way the man seemed to speak of everything. Charles grinned even wider, as if sharing in the joke; he could sense Raven's unease beside him. 

“I assure you, Colonel, if I'm a patriot you're a baboon.” There was a moment of tense silence, Charles's hand still ensconced in the colonel's, before he pulled away and exclaimed gaily, “A round of New York's finest, on me!”

He sat again beside Raven, the colonel directly across the table. He could still feel Raven's questing gaze, silently promising a later interrogation as to his odd behavior. He simply patted her hand absently and proceeded to get sloshed. 

For a long time Charles was lost to the buzz of conversation and thought around him. Without alcohol, withstanding the pressure of a crowd was nearly impossible for him; but under the drink's dampening influence, the rest of the world fell away, and he knew once again the hazy, dimorphous shapes and colors of his childhood – Raven swirled all amber and azure to his right, Gloria in sapphire and gold to his left, Humphrey in all the ochres and charcoals of his stolid nature. Honeycutt pooled on the edge of his senses. Something in his fetid depths warned Charles not to get too close, and he was completely prepared to oblige.

Sometime deep into the night, a word Charles had not heard in years jolted him to attention.

“The Jews are a problem, surely, but the military's objective is to subdue the Jerries so we can shift focus to the Pacific Theatre.”

“But Colonel, what they've been saying on the radio, it can't be true, can it? It must be an exaggeration – there is no war without horrors, yes, but they were talking about trains and, what did they call them, _death camps_ –“

“Like I said, the Jews are not the army's priority. A bloody annoyance, really, cleaning up after them. If Hitler hates them as much as he says he does, he would have left fewer of them to deal with.”

“I'm sorry, what are you talking about?” Charles asked, leaning forward.

Raven rolled her eyes. “Charles here doesn't keep with the news much.” If she had looked at him, she would have recognized the dark, intense danger percolating through his clear blue eyes; but her gaze was focused on the colonel's aide-de-camp, a dashing fellow with gelled black hair.

“That's a capital way of being an irresponsible citizen, son,” Honeycutt said, his beady eyes focused on Charles.

“Never took the test, I'm afraid,” Charles said, unmoving. “What were you talking about?”

“Some policy of the Germans',” Gloria said, utterly unaware of the sudden tension. “It doesn't make much sense to me militarily – although very little does, haha! Diversions from the front could be pleasurable for the troops, I suppose.”

Charles stared at her so long and hard that she burst into nervous laughter. “Raven, my dear, it seems that your friend has had enough for tonight. Goodness, Charles, you'll make me blush. Perhaps a nightcap and then off you go? I'll handle your check, clearly it is no trouble.”

Honeycutt, however, ignored Gloria's attempt at diffusing the situation and leaned across the table, matching Charles's aggressive posture. “We are winning the war, Mr. Xavier!” he boomed, loud enough that several tables around them went silent. “Don't bother yourself over the Hebrews.”

“I am not bothered by the _Hebrews_ , my good _Colonel_ ,” Charles spat. He stood loudly, shoving his chair back and downing his drink. “You are right, Gloria, I have had quite enough of tonight. I hope to see you soon, and in better company.”

Confusion and hostility swirled around him as Charles made his way through the crowd, being far less careful with his elbows than he had been on entering. He didn't slow until he hit the cold of the street, and realized he had forgotten his jacket – and with it, of course, his cigarettes. And he was now without his wallet, so he couldn't even buy a new pack. Brilliant. He'd have to walk the whole way home, too, although he didn't know if he could stomach his apartment right then, with its panoramic view of Manhattan and her stench.

“Charles!” came a voice from behind him, and he sighed to see Raven, dear Raven, hurrying towards him on unsteady heels, his jacket over her arm. Ignoring her questioning look, he took his coat without a word, swung himself into it, and rooted around until he found his cigarette case. He blew the smoke into the air, relieved. It did nothing to calm the thumping of his heart though, or the blood roaring behind his eyes. 

“Charles,” Raven said again, dragging him around to face her. He resisted, moving to hail an incoming cab.

“Leave off, Raven, I'm tired; I'll phone you tomorrow, ta?”

“It is not fucking _ta_ , you blasted limey!”

“Raven!”

“What? You can storm out of the most reputable club in the city, insult a friend of the president, _ruin my evening_ , and you object to my _language_?”

“I've told you, dear, if you want to fit in –“

“Can we not make this about me right now?” Raven asked, lowering her voice regardless.

“I'm sorry,” Charles said, and then, more earnestly, “Oh, I am sorry, my dear.” He pulled her into a hug that she grudgingly accepted.

“Jesus, Charles,” she said when they separated. “Ten years and I _still_ can't get hide nor hair of you.”

“I'm sorry love,” Charles said, and, again, sighed. “I truly am.” They stood in silence for a moment, Raven watching as he took a mighty drag of his cigarette. 

“Why don't we walk a bit?” she suggested finally. “It's a fine night. Who knows, we might run into an adventure!”

“I don't know, Raven,” Charles said. It distressed her, how tired he suddenly sounded. She noticed, for perhaps the first time, the cracks at the corners of his eyes, and the bags below them; the slackness of his mouth and the shiny expanse of forehead. _He's getting old right in front of me,_ she thought, and winced when Charles quirked his eye brow. 

“I'm not quite there yet, darling, but thank you for noticing. I'm glad there is someone who notices those things.”

“There's more than just _someone_ , Charles. Plenty of people care about you.”

“I think you're mistaking me for yourself, my dear.”

“ _Charles_.”

“Please, Raven, don't listen to me right now. I'm tired.”

“That's a first,” Raven muttered.

“It really isn't,” Charles said quietly. He hugged her again, and tucked a stray strand of hair behind her ear, from where it had fallen. “Go back inside; have a good night. I'll hail a cab and head home to a cup of tea and a warm bath, I think.”

“ _Just_ tea, right Charles?”

“You know me a little _too_ well,” he said, jokingly, but without any real warmth. “Don't worry about me. An old man can handle himself. Oi!” he shouted, waving his arm at a passing taxi. A weathered man with an Irish aspect emerged from the cab, tipping his hat awkwardly at the glamorous pair before him.

“Charles, you know you're running again, don't you?”

“Fast as I can.”

“ _Charles!_ ”

“Raven.” Charles paused and removed his foot from the taxi to go back and stand in front of her. He kissed her on the nose, and then both cheeks. She still looked at him, expectant and stubborn. Realizing charm wouldn't work, he hardened his eyes. “Leave. Off. Please.”

She huffed in exasperation and stepped out of his embrace. Nodding, he swung himself into the cab.

“I don't know why you care so much, Charles,” she called after him as the car began to move. He settled back, expecting her next words to be lost to the wind.

The window was open, though, and he heard every word. 

“I don't get it, Charles – they're just Jews.”

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *  ~ * ~ * ~**

Charles met Raven on his first night in the city. He was angry, and tired, and finding a pretty young dame trying to pick the lock on his new apartment seemed like just the excuse he needed. But before he had even gotten her in the door, he saw something of himself in the strange eyes that swam between brown and gold. He took her inside and, instead of putting her to bed, plied her with milk and cookies and sat up till dawn, hearing her story: the daughter of two black parents in Kentucky that had somehow come out white; being sent away when she was six to a school that didn’t exist, just because the landlord wouldn't stop asking where they had gotten the peaches and cream creature; living since then on the crusts of the Depression and her own set of skills, honed through years of scraping dumpsters for dinner whilst remembering the finery she had known in her youth, and retaining a taste for it. 

Then, of course, was the strange change she had discovered as she came of age; how one morning she woke to a passing heiress screaming in terror, how she'd looked in a store window and seen a blue, scaled freak looking back at her. 

How the power to change her skin had come too late; how she had returned home and found her parent's farm burned to ashes, their gravemarkers, oak branches lashed into crosses, the only standing structures for miles. 

Before Charles, she had survived by impersonating maids and butlers and absconding with the lady's jewels, the man's cheque book; she had cased Charles's penthouse for weeks before deciding it was unoccupied, rendering a disguise unneeded. 

It was just her luck, really, that he had returned when he did – as he reminded her quite often, actually: since then, she had lived a life Ida and Jackson Darkholme could never have imagined – not even for a girl of peaches and cream.

**~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~ *  ~ * ~ * ~**

There was no surprise at his door this time. He waved away an astonished Mr. Bridges, still in his uniform (it was too early to be making a point in his nightclothes) and stalked into his bedroom, reaching to drag the curtains shut before pausing, and looking.

Charles had shipped himself to New York for his 25th birthday, and it was – it _was_ , by far, the best decision of his life. Sure, for a few years vintage was thin on the ground, and he had to break out his very best charm when the chocolate bowls ran dry – but with Kurt financing a hefty percent of the Allied effort, they could afford his baby boy a few extra Hersheys. But now, the spring of 1946 was edging through a six-year long winter. Where before shanties had swayed in the wind, violets were blooming. The ladies of Manhattan sparkled once more, driving away the clouds of mourning. 

It was spring again.

From his penthouse apartment on Fifth Avenue, the splendor of the city lay at his feet. From one window he could glimpse the dancing lights of Broadway, far brighter than the stars they chased back beyond the clouds; through another, from his bedroom, the Empire State Building, impaling the island like a grey, monolithic cock.

 _Fitzgerald had it wrong,_ Charles thought, looking up and down the building's great length. _Manhattan_ is _a universe, as every island is. With gin and champagne on all sides, who needs the rest of the world?_

Irritated, Charles twitched the heavy velvet shut.

Charles had finished changing into his pajamas and was pouring a shot of whiskey (Raven didn't know that he couldn't sleep without it, not with so many millions of voices shouting in his head when his defenses were down, when in all those billions he wished for only one) when the telephone rang.

He considered letting it go to tape and having Mr. Bridges give him the message in the morning, but he knew even single-malt wouldn't be enough to put him out tonight. With any luck, it would be some old flame looking for a good time. This kind of tension could be banished through a good fuck, usually.

Of course, a man has only a limited supply of luck for one lifetime.

“Charles, I wanted to call and apologize,” Raven said from across the line, as Charles barely smothered a sigh. He loved his girl, he truly did, but at the moment he couldn’t find it in himself to love much of anything.

“It's fine, dear,” Charles said, thumbing through the detritus on his desk (had he really gotten so many telegrams recently? What a responsible adult you are, Xavier).

“No, but Charles, it isn't, the things you must think of me –“

“Honestly, you've interrupted my attempts at thinking of nothing at all, so I would drop that worry straight off.” He picked up an envelope at random and proceeded to open it, if only for something for his hands to do.

“Please listen to me, Charles. I was awful, I know I was. I just get so frustrated when you close yourself off, you know everything about me but you never tell me how you feel or why – dammit Charles, are you there? I swear to God, if you hung up on me, I will tell the Times that I saw a sore on your cock and then we'll see how much tail you get in this goddamn town – Charles, what was that noise? Charles?”

Raven rattled her phone, hearing only static after the odd thunk that had broken off her tirade. A million thoughts darted through her avid brain, each more horrific than the last – a murderer had cut Charles's phone line, a murderer had cut _Charles_ , he was having a heart attack, a stroke, and Christ, he must have sent Bridges to bed by now and she'd have to phone the police but they'd never get there in time –

“Raven?”

“Bloody fuck, Charles!” she shouted. “What was that about, I was scared silly –“

“My mother is dying.”

Raven's tirade broke off like a shot in the dark.

“Oh... oh Charles, oh my God, I'm so sorry. When did she know?”

“This telegram is from two months ago,” Charles said. His voice was dead, devoid of emotion, and that scared Raven far more than anything else.

“Charles? Do you need me there?”

“No. No, thank you Raven. I'll just go to bed, I think. Breakfast at the Plaza tomorrow?”

“Alright,” she said, uncertain. “Are you sure you're ok?”

“Oh no, love, I'm perfectly alright. I was never close to my mother, remember. Have a good sleep, my dear.”

“Ok, good night.” She worked the phone between her hands, fumbling. “I love you, Charles.”

Downing the decanter in a single breath, Charles didn't hear a word.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The bit where Fitzgerald is mentioned refers to his essay "My Lost City", most specifically one of the final paragraphs where he talks about climbing the Empire State Building. It's one of my favorite written works ever, and I highly recommend it, especially if you're interested in the end of the Roaring Twenties.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> For the first time in ten years, Charles comes home.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning for physical abuse.

Aside from a servants' cottage that had been leveled in the Blitz, Xavier Manor hadn't changed at all.

 _A pity_ , Charles thought, standing at the inner gates where his cab had dropped him off, twin suitcases in hand. _The northwest foundations have gotten so old. A nicely placed bomb might have done us good_. Sick of his own thoughts, Charles shouldered through the gate, leaving it open behind him, and walked slowly up the yellow gravel drive.

He hadn't expected anyone to be there to meet him – he had not called ahead, after all, and as far as the household knew he was sleeping off a hangover in New York – but he was surprised to find the grounds so deserted. He could hardly expect Kurt to have called a last supper to his mother's bedside; and if she were already gone, he would not have forced the help to hang their heads in mourning. They would get a thrashing, most like, if they did.

Mostly, though, what he thought of as he approached his childhood home, was how everything in England seemed so much smaller after the vaulting avenues of Manhattan – everything except this house. If anything, it seemed to have grown larger, more menacing in his absence.

He paused as he heard Raven jogging to catch up, annoyed with himself for having forgotten her, for being pulled as always into the vortex of this house, the haze and darkness it dropped him into.

In his years in the States, he had tried to explain it to himself; it was not like being on his own was a basket of sunshine and roses, no matter that the Post had called him The Stork's sunniest patron and women always approached him in awe of his smile. He smiled widest at the bottom of a wine glass, and the longest when laughing at himself.

“Holy toledo,” Raven said under her breath, standing next to him, her gaze torn between the house and its magnificent grounds. “I knew you were rich, Charles,” she laughed incredulously, “but this is just ungodly.”

“I'll agree with you there,” he muttered. “Are you sure you don't want me to take your case, I hardly look a gentleman.”

“You know I'm stronger than you, Charles, stop complaining,” Raven said, carrying her four bulging bags as if they were hatboxes. “Besides, we hardly want to give a wrong impression of you.”

“Nonsense; there is no right impression to have.”

“Would you stop being contrary for one moment?” Raven asked, exasperated. “I know this is hard for you; I came because I want to help –“

“Against my will, might I add –“

“– but if you're going to be a bothersome ninny about it I can turn around and fly right back home.”

“You won't though.”

“No, you twat, I won't. But I'll shout your ear bloody until _you_ do.”

“Lovely to see your ladylike ways on display, Miss Darkholme.”

“Always a pleasure, Mr. Xavier.” Without any visible strain, she shifted all her cases to one hand and linked her other arm through Charles's. “Off to see the wizard, then?”

Charles groaned, even as his face cracked with its first genuine smile since he had read the telegram. “The wicked witch, more like, although that's being generous to him.”

“Don't be silly, Charles, I'm sure his complexion is lovely.”

“So is a snake's, until it bites you in the arse.”

“How is it you're such an abominable ray of sunshine with everyone else, but the most unbearable twat with your most wonderful friend?”

“It's a talent you've cultivated in me for many years.”

“Well, I've been blessed with the perfect student.”

“Always happy to oblige.”

Charles engaged in their banter more and more urgently as they fell into the house's mighty shadow, and then stopped altogether as they walked slowly up the lane, his eyes skimming the vanishing battlements and ivy-hung walls and windows that, although unbarred, were chained like the Tower of London itself. Raven respected his silence, and he was glad that she kept her worried gaze away, preferring instead to scan the grounds and their endless stretches of green.

“Look over there,” Raven said, and he broke from his trance with no small gratitude. He followed her finger to find her pointing at the magnificent fountain that had been a gift to his grandfather from Queen Victoria. At the moment it was not flowing, but a figure stood at its lip. From this distance the features were impossible to make out, but Charles could tell it was a man of remarkable build.

“Can you tell what he's doing?” Charles asked, grateful for the distraction, and knowing that Raven loved to show off her superior senses, especially of sight.

“I can't quite tell. He seems a workman of some kind, by his dress. Perhaps he's making repairs.”

“Perhaps. It is the time of year for the fountain to be turned on again. By Jove, you do realize it is nearly spring?”

“Spring has come and gone, my dear.”

“Not in England. Here, you must wait on the rain.”

“Mustn't be long now,” Raven muttered, eyeing the overcast sky. She was the type to bring an umbrella at the slightest hint of cloud, while Charles had grown prone to forgetting his in the kinder American weather. He knew the skies though; this was a storm that would wait to break.

He opened his mouth to say so when someone gasped from the direction of the house. They both paused in their step and turned to look.

A very young girl, barely a woman at the looks of it, had just emerged from the servant's door. Mousy more in aspect than in size, she wore plain homespun clothes over a plain homespun frame and had hands that flitted about like daisies in the sun.

“Charles?” she gasped again, reaching forward as if to brush a ghost.

“Yes?” he said, disentangling himself from Raven, trying to remember why she seemed so familiar.

“Charles!” she said, laughing. “You really don't remember me? You looked after me while Da had the car out.”

Charles gaped, dropping his luggage. “Dolly? Dolly Porter?” She nodded, biting her lip, and her eyes widened when he stepped forward to hug her. He spun her around, laughing, then put her down and twisted her about in disbelief. “Dolly, by God, what happened to you?”

“Ten years, I suppose,” she said, stumbling a little when he quit manhandling her. She looked him up and down, shyly, and laughed incredulously. “And you, you don't look a day older!”

“You flatter me, my dear,” he said, his cheer now a bit forced. “Good lord, it's good to see you! Is your father about? Does he still work here?”

Something in Dolly's aspect froze, and Charles's stomach plummeted to the floor.

“Da passed some years ago,” she said, smiling almost apologetically. “He was in town and one of the shellings got him. The constable said it was a direct hit, though, so he wouldn't have suffered.”

“Kurt thought it a good idea to send a man into town in the middle of the bloody Blitz?”

“It isn't Mr. Marko's fault; Da could have stayed behind and died of a heart attack a day later. And besides, you shouldn't talk about him like that. He's been good to me. He could have let me go and gotten a proper maid, but he didn't. And he paid for a nice funeral. There were white lilies and everything. You remember how Da loved lilies?

Charles did remember; he remembered the fresh flower he wore in his button hole; the dry petals he put in the cab to keep it smelling fresh; the vase Charles gave him that held the only clean things in the entire garage.

“I'm so sorry, Dolly.”

“Oh, that's alright, it was many years ago now. Hello there, Miss,” she said, turning to Raven, who had been watching their exchange shrewdly. “Is– is this your wife, Charles?”

Charles was saved the indignity of laughing by Raven's guffaw, to which he did take a bit of offense. “If he had the audacity to ask I'd spank his arse before saying no,” she said. At last Raven put down her bloody cases and extended a primly gloved hand. “Raven Darkholme. I distract the police.”

And oh, poor Dolly, she didn't know what to do at all. Reverting to her training, she curtsied politely over Raven's hand, which the older woman withdrew awkwardly. “A pleasure, Miss,” she said softly, looking vaguely panicked.

“Raven, don't frighten her!” Charles said, putting an arm around Dolly's shoulders. “I've been trying to teach her good English manners, but, you see, she was raised in this awful land known as Kentucky. It's a wonder I taught her how to say please and thank you.”

“And it's a wonder your arse isn't in a billion pieces from here to Timbuktu,” Raven muttered, gathering her things back together. She seemed to have taken a liking to Dolly, though, for she smiled impishly at her. “Don't believe anything he says about me; it's grossly over-exaggerated.”

“And anything she says about me is grossly under-exaggerated, so it's clear why we're such great friends.”

“Indubitably,” Raven said, rolling her eyes.

Grateful that Dolly now seemed more perplexed than terrified, Charles squeezed her shoulders and bent to pick up his luggage again. The action seemed to snap Dolly back to herself.

“Oh goodness, look at me keeping you out here in the cold with your bags! Come in, you'll want to come inside! Why didn't Jack get you from the station?”

“I didn't call,” Charles said, taking up his cases. “I wasn't sure what to say, frankly.”

“That you were coming home, I'd think.”

“I suppose,” Charles said, nodding as she held the door for them. “What of the rest of the staff, who else is still here?”

“Mrs. Glenn is still on as head-of-house, and the kitchen staff is all the same, except for a few maids, of course. A lot of the staff, they left during the war.” Charles noted her hesitation; he very much doubted they had gone of their own choosing. “Billy, you remember Billy, he was killed in France – here, sit down a moment, rest your feet, I'll get you a cuppa – a jolly kid took his place, barely out of grammar school; sharp as a whip, though.” She bustled about the small servant's kitchen, getting him bread and jam. “And the groundskeeper is new.”

Charles raised his eyebrows at her tone. “What's the problem with him?”

“Oh, no, there's no problem. He, he's a bit dodgy, that's all.”

“Dodgy? What, has he come after you?”

“No, nothing of that sort!” Dolly said, scoffing. “He hardly looks at Emma, let alone me. Barely looks at anyone, really. I don’t know if I've heard him say more than two words together, and he's been here a good time. No, he's no trouble, just – sometimes I get the sense that he'd kill us all in our sleep if he could.” She laughed at herself, sitting down with a plate of biscuits. “He's a wonder with all these newfangled machines, though.”

“I'll have to have a word with him,” Charles said, frowning.

“Oh, Charles, please don't,” Dolly said. “I'm sure he's just lonely. He never gets any post, and even I get letters. I think he's quite on his own in the world.”

“So am I, and I don't look like I want to take a bite out of you, do I?”

Dolly colored and laughed nervously. “That's not true, Charles, how could you be alone?”

“Everyone's alone; it just matters more to some of us.”

Raven snorted loudly, ignoring the way Dolly bit her lip and looked at her lap, troubled. Charles remembered then that she couldn't be more than 17.

“I'm sorry for that, my dear, I didn’t mean it,” he said, reaching across the table to take her hand. It was miniscule, with a smudge of soot on one knuckle. “This trip has tossed me a bit, you know? Ten years is a long time away.”

“You came because of your mum?” she asked, looking somewhere in the vicinity of Charles's wrist. Charles realized that he liked holding her hand. He used to lead her to the duck pond like that, and point at the turtles.

“Yes,” he said. “The telegram got lost in the shuffle, so I didn't know, not until a week ago. Thank you, by the way, for sending it. I don't know how I'd have found out otherwise.”

“Of course,” Dolly said, furrowing her brow.

“You know, I could do with a trip to the loo,” Raven said, clapping the table and standing. She waved dismissively at Dolly when the girl stood to show her the way. “Nonsense, you two stay here and chat, I can find my own way.” She strode off without waiting for a reply. Charles would have to commend her later for her unmatchable subtlety.

They sat in silence for a few moments. Dolly fiddled with a crumb on the table, building molehills, until Charles asked, “So, how is Sharon? Has she kicked it yet?”

Dolly looked up at him sharply. “I don't know what America has done to your manners, Charles, but that is disgraceful.” Realizing what she had just said, and to whom, a look of horror passed across Dolly's face. “Oh, no, Charles, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean –“

Charles laughed and took her hand again. “Nonsense, my dear, you mean every word, and I'm glad of it too. You're right, that was wrong to say. Forget I ever said it. I'll ask simply how she is.”

Dolly relaxed at his forgiveness and looked again at their hands. “As well as can be expected, I suppose. I overheard Dr. Levinson saying that it's a virulent disease, but with some luck it can be held off for a bit longer.”

“Not unlike my mother,” Charles said. He could tell by the pleat in Dolly's brow that she didn't fully approve, but she held her tongue. “It's cancer of the...”

“The liver, but it's spread to the heart.”

“Of course,” Charles said softly. “Has she been hard on you?” Charles knew, as one of the youngest housemaids, it would be Dolly's duty to tend to the ailing mistress.

“It's nothing I can't handle,” she said bravely. She smiled a bit guiltily, and said, “You know, on account of her liver, the physician has ordered her not to drink any alcohol.”

Charles threw back his head and laughed. “Oh Dolly, you poor dear, how awful for you! What has she offered for a bottle of sherry?”

“You mean lately?” Dolly asked, giggling. “Once she told me she could get me a lordship. No offense to Mrs. Marko, Charles, but I don’t think even _she_ has the power for that.”

“You call her Mrs. Marko?”

Dolly's mirth fell away at the look on his face. “Well, yes. It's her name.”

“Yes. Yes, of course it is.”

“Charles,” Dolly said softly. “I never knew your father, and he must have been a great man, but... she's been married to Mr. Marko for 30 years. Can you really blame her for wanting to forget someone she can't get back?”

“Yes I bloody can,” Charles snapped. He felt an instant rush of shame for the look on Dolly's face... but not for what he'd said. He meant it. He meant it more than most things. “You don't... everything changed after him. She loved my father – I know she did, truly did. You can't love more than one person like that in one life, but Kurt made her –“

“But how do you know Mr. Marko isn't the one she's meant to love?” Dolly asked.

“You don't know him like I do. It can't be him,” Charles said.

And yet... and yet he was now unsure. He saw Kurt through the haze of his own hate and fear, built through decades of terror and abuse. What if Sharon–

But no. Charles could see things that others couldn't. Even if it was harder within these wall, he knew the pulses of Kurt's mind, the dispassionate and lurking contempt Charles had felt since he met him when he was all of seven years old. Even if Sharon felt something true – you could not be meant for someone who didn’t want you back. Brian Xavier had loved Sharon for all her faults, and that was why she turned to drink when he died, when Charles– but Charles knew from her sallow skin and trembling hands that she had been sick long before her husband left. Maybe she had no great love. Maybe it would never come.

“Oh Charles, I'm sorry, I didn't mean to make you sad,” Dolly said, taking his hand again. “Do you want to go up to your room and announce yourself tomorrow? It's getting late, and I can bring a tray up secretly. You look exhausted.”

“No, darling, I'm fine, truly. It's just... being back here...”

“I know,” she murmured. “Or, well, I want to. I know we've been apart for so long, and I must still seem a baby to you, but I want to be of help however I can. Anything that will make you feel good, Charles, just ask me, and I'll... I'll, um, help.”

She had turned an alarming shade of scarlet and was ducking her head beneath a fringe of hair, but Charles was too distracted to notice. He was thinking instead of time. Of time, and chances gone past.

“Pardon the length of my absence,” Raven said loudly, walking in on her white half-heels. “I found the wash room quite early on but I kept getting distracted by bits of the house. Have you ever looked at the moulding, Charles, it's absolutely extraordinary. Are you sure this is the servant's area?”

“Is it wise to take you upstairs?” Charles asked, rolling his eyes.

“Well now you must,” Raven insisted. She smiled at Dolly. “A good catching up?”

“Yes, I hope, I think so,” she said quietly, not quite meeting Raven's eye. She seemed intimidated by the older woman, in her black pantsuit and stately pearls. “Do you want your old room, Charles, and the one beside it?”

“Raven can have my old room,” Charles said instantly. He had thought of this in the middle of the Atlantic, so suddenly it seemed a premonition. “Kurt hasn't taken my father's suite, has he?”

“No, Mr. Marko's stayed in the master bed.”

“I'll be in my father's room, then. If it's not too much trouble.”

“Of course not, Charles,” she said softly, with conviction. She gazed at him, and opened her mouth as if to say something – but then she shut it and stood. “You don't mind if I inform Mrs. Glenn of your presence, do you? I'd feel awful keeping her out of the loop.”

“And you'd likely be found out anyway,” Charles said, laughing. “No, of course not. In fact... Raven, why don't you go on up. I'd like to wander a bit, before putting away my things.”

“By wander I assume you mean wander alone?”

“Yes. I do.”

“Well then, more time to look through your nasty goods.”

“We cleaned the room ages ago, Miss, there shouldn't be–“

“I know, dear girl, I was joking. Charles doesn't keep his dirty laundry where others can find it anyway.”

“Thank you for that.”

“It's true,” Raven said meaningfully. Charles wished he felt free to dig deeper, but Dolly's presence constricted him.

“Are you sure you don't need me for anything else, Charles?”

“I'm sure, Dolly, thank you. I'll see you soon, Raven, and if not, tomorrow. Just ring the bell by the bed if you want anything.”

“Oh, what service,” she said, grinning. But when Dolly was bending down to pick up Charles's luggage, Raven sidled closer and murmured, “Are you sure you're alright? You're looking a little green.”

“How would you feel in my situation,” he muttered.

“You're going to confront him, aren't you.”

“To speak to him at least. Battle some demons.”

“You're sure a night of sleep wouldn't do you good?”

“I'm sure it would, but not in this. I'd most likely lose my nerve and make a dash for Heathrow.”

She put a hand on his arm and forced him to look at her. “You'll be fine, Charles. You're stronger than he is.”

Charles snorted softly. “Thank you for saying that.”

“I mean it,” she said earnestly. “I don't mean just... because of what we do. You've hidden something away because you're scared of it, but trust me, you're the strongest person I know.”

Charles rolled his eyes but hugged her anyway, touched by her conviction. Even if her belief was bunk, it surely proved her love for him, and that he was grateful for.

He let the women go up first and followed slowly, re-acclimating to the tenor of the house, the heaviness as he ascended step by step into the glitz and gold of his childhood. He found Kurt right where he expected him to be – in the grand library, a sheaf of papers in front of him.

Charles was pleased to note that the years had not been kind to Kurt Marko. He had always bourn a hefty figure, but as he aged the width of his barrel chest had migrated into a paunch that strained at his dressing gown. His skin looked like a melted tallow candle, and the little hair he had left was oiled flat across his scalp. But his eyes, when he turned them on Charles standing hesitantly in the doorway, were as mean and beady as ever. Charles felt an instinctive part of himself run and hide away; the thought of feeling anything from this man's mind, no matter how useful it might be, was too sickening to be bourn.

“Kurt,” Charles said, squaring his shoulders, but still not moving from his post by the door.

“Charles,” Kurt said. He tapped his papers into a neat pile, and shut them away inside a folder. Charles made a mental note of asking Dolly where he kept his files, and to sneak a peek if she could. They might prove useful, when the time came.

When the silence began to grow painful, Charles strode forward (this was his house, dammit, not Kurt's, and he could damn well act like it) and offered his hand. “How are you?” he asked, in his most diplomatic voice.

But Kurt was still staring at him with his flat, attack dog gaze. Then, slowly, he removed his glasses and put them on the table, and stood to shake Charles's hand. He had always had a grip like iron, and Charles felt his bones creak menacingly. He kept it from his face, though; if he could hold his own in poker with Clark Gable, he could damn well meet Kurt stare for stare.

When Kurt removed his hand, he stuck his fists in the pockets of his dressing gown and stood, still silent, looking Charles up and down. At long last, he spoke.

“You were in the Times last month,” he said. His voice, too, had degenerated. Charles remembered the Cuban cigars he spent thousands of pounds on every month, that he smoked in the house even though they triggered Sharon's migraines. Judging by the fact that his voice sounded like he was speaking out of an ash tray, Charles assumed he had not kicked the habit.

“Really,” Charles said, matching his posture. “I'm afraid I don't read the papers much.”

“It said that you had broken the record for most clubs a single Englishman has been banned from in one year. How many was it? Seventeen?”

“Seven, actually. How good of them to keep count.”

“Of course, you know the article listed you as the son of financier Kurt Marko. I did not appreciate that.”

“I'll be sure to take it up with the reporter if I ever meet him. A charming fellow, I assume, to take an interest in me.”

“That is not the word I was looking for.” Kurt glared at him for some long moments before turning and walking to the window. Charles allowed himself a moment to shudder, trying to hold onto his ten years alone, the confidence he found, the powerful people he's wined and dined – but in all those years there was nothing he could hold to the light and prove he was no longer the little boy who trembled under his step-father's switch. And so he retained his stance by the desk, looking at his shoes, feeling tears of shame for his own cowardice pricking his eyes. 

“I am surprised to see you here, Charles. I had thought we were rid of you forever.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“What has prompted this untimely visit?”

“Your wife is dying. Or perhaps she has died and you thought the knowledge would be too painful for me. Either way, _you_  seem to have quite forgotten.”

“Because I am not blubbering like a little boy, you think I am being insensitive?” he asked, still looking out the window.

“Perhaps waiting for her death before getting the estate in order would be a step in the right direction.”

“Maybe you'd rather I use my father's money on £100 hookers. Or better yet, leave my family to fend for itself during a war that nearly leveled the greatest city in our nation. Is that how you would prefer I show my devotion?”

“If you had any devotion in the first place. Yes. Maybe, yes.”

Tapping a finger on the window pane, Kurt turned and ambled towards Charles, looking nonchalantly about the room as if refusing to give Charles his full attention would be an annoyance. Charles was somewhat chagrined to find that was true.

“What do you mean to accomplish here, Charles?”

“I want to say good bye to my mother. And make sure that her will is secure.”

“Sharon does not have a will.”

“Then she will make one. Mr. Keeney will be here tomorrow afternoon.”

“Who is Mr. Keeney.”

“My lawyer. And my father's. And the manager of the estate.”

“And you know, I thought I was all three of those things.”

“Sorry to disappoint.”

“You do disappoint me, Charles. When I first met you, you seemed such a bright boy. So much potential. There were wrinkles here and there, and we tried to straighten them out –“

“You locked me in a cupboard for three days!”

“– but when Sharon told me the nature of your illness, well, what could we do but send you off and hope you got better, before more tragedy struck –“

“You're a filthy goddamn liar –“

“Why do you think a woman worth £100 million would enter a chronic illness without writing a will? Perhaps because she knew her beast of a son would drop dead of syphilis long before she'd have any need of managing it.”

“Well, I haven't died, have I?”

“Not yet.”

“Are you threatening me?”

With a speed that always shocked Charles, no matter how many times he had been on the receiving end of it, Kurt grabbed him by the collar and peddled him backwards, slamming him against the wall.

“Now that you mention it, yes, _Master Xavier_ , I am threatening you,” he hissed into Charles's face; drops of spit smacked him on the cheek and dotted Kurt's beard. “You have the _nerve_ to come back here, ten years after abandoning your responsibilities to live some sort of libertine life in the big city, spending the fortune of a small country that your more productive forefathers were so kind as to endow to you – and you think that _you_ have the authority to take my property from me? You are a cad, Charles Xavier. Everything you've ever gotten was earned by another's sweat, and I swear to God if you continue to insult me in this way, under my roof, it's more than your reputation that will be stained, do you understand me? Or would you rather I. Be. More. Clear?” he spat, slamming Charles's head against the wall with every word. Charles bit the inside of his lip so hard he tasted blood, but he would not, he would NOT allow a whimper to escape his body.

But then Kurt raised a forearm and leaned against Charles's windpipe, bringing his face even closer. “I didn't hear an answer, Charles.”

 _He's finally going to kill me_ , Charles thought with a surprising amount of relief. _He won't be able to hold ownership of the house then. And it'll be done. It'll all be done_.

Looking Kurt square in the face, black dots sparkling at the edge of his vision, Charles closed his eyes.

“I brought the papers you asked for sir, will there be anything else?”

Charles gasped through his liberated windpipe as Kurt pulled away; he leaned heavily against the wall, barely remaining on his feet.

“Thank you, Mr. Lensherr, that will be all. Check the thermostat before you turn in, it's dreadfully chilly in here.”

“...Yes sir.”

“Well what are you looking at? On your way!”

Charles glanced up just as the man inclined his head; he gathered the impression of a strong brow and hardened features before he strode away. _The groundskeeper_ , Charles thought, remembering the distant man standing by the fountain, the look on Dolly's face when she spoke of him. _I'm not surprised she feels way she does_ , Charles mused in the part of his brain that was still groping for oxygen. _Though I rather think he'd let a convict in the door and knit through the slaughter, instead of doing the killing himself_. Finally regaining the presence of mind to attend to the man who had come close to killing _him_ , he stood tall and straightened his suit.

Kurt had retreated back to his desk and was in the same position he had been in when Charles arrived; if not the for red at the base of his sweaty neck and a trembling in his hands, you'd think the whole episode had not occurred.

“You may stay here as long as you wish, _Master Xavier_ ,” he said without looking up. “But if I catch wind of any trouble, I'm going straight to the police.”

Charles's eyes widened. “You? What claim could you have when you _put your arm against my bloody neck_?”

“Sharon told me how her husband died,” Kurt said, and the bottom dropped out of Charles's heart.

“What–“

“There's very little I could do to prove it, of course. Unless I had managed to save the coroner's report, as well as the filings of the psychiatrist who spoke to the victim's son. And I recently met a lovely young man, the nephew of a Duke, who was at school with the son of the deceased, and claims he engaged in the most degrading of acts with another male student.”

“I never–“

“So I would advise this son to step exceedingly carefully if he is to stay in this house for another moment. Which he may do, of course. He is, after all, the third heir to the estate. Quite a lucky position, in his circumstances.” Kurt had not looked up from his papers through his entire speech. “I trust this young man knows his way about. Good day, _Master_ Xavier.”

“Good day,” Charles whispered through his swelling throat, and walked away the best he could.

* * *

“I don't know _how_ you survived such hardship, Charles, I mean really, you can't even fit a dozen people in this bed, how in the world did you live– my God, what the bloody hell happened to you?”

“I'd rather not talk about it right now, Raven, I've just come to say good night and see you're settled in.”

“We bloody _are_ discussing it now–“

“Please, dear, we shouldn’t talk in the hall and I don't think I can enter my childhood room right now; can't it wait till morning? Please, Raven.”

She was still staring at him, and the rising bruises on his neck, in horror; but his rasping voice must have been more pitiful than he suspected, for she slowly nodded her assent.

She stepped forward and hugged him carefully. “We're going to nail this son of a bitch, right?”

“I do hope so,” Charles whispered. “Try to stay out of his way; in fact, stay in this room as much as you can. I didn’t exactly get around to informing him of your presence, and I don't want trouble for you.”

“I can take care of myself, Charles.”

“Still. It would make me feel better. You have a dozen people to sleep for tonight; you might as well get a good head start.”

“You're a twat,” she said with overflowing warmth.

“I love you too,” Charles muttered, kissing her on the forehead and grimacing as the movement stretched his neck.

“You'll see your mother in the morning?”

“If I can stomach it.”

“Alright. Good night, Charles.”

“Good night, love.”

He waited until her door was closed and locked before moving down the corridor slowly.

Even after all these years, this was such a familiar path that he could have completed it with his eyes closed. On the nights when he was most frightened or plagued with bad dreams, he would wander down the hall to his father's room and lock himself in the wardrobe with Brian Xavier's old fur coats. Kurt had taken the most magnificent for himself, of course (under the guise of Christmas presents from Sharon, while in reality he would have gotten them no matter her preference), and the ones that remained were eaten half through by moths. But Charles, even in his late adolescence, felt great comfort in being smothered by the musty and heady stench, the warm weight pressing him down on all sides. He supposed it could be equated to lying beneath a very large woman, but although the analogy faltered whenever he considered it, he did not pursue it further. Perhaps the willful surrender had helped him control all that was mindless and afraid within himself; and if within that coffin of furs was where he touched himself for the first time, that he did not dwell on either.

Tonight, at the very least, Charles walked into his father's room and felt small again.

It was not the size of the space, for this was one of the smallest bedrooms in the mansion. Charles supposed it would have been nice for his father, when he needed an escape from his manic depressive wife (who, indeed, from the moment she moved in had made a beeline for the most decadent, expansive, and ostentatious room of the whole house. Entire families could have lived comfortably in the space, but to that day she lamented the fact that the foundations prevented her from taking walls down and expanding it. When Kurt became its main resident, Charles hoped he _would_ knock the wall down, so he might be buried in the rubble when the house collapsed). No – the bigness was in the plain sky blue sheets that had dressed the bed for thirty years; the 300 year old clock that ticked beside the fireplace; the wall of books that Brian Xavier had deemed too important to leave in the public library downstairs. He took a volume down at random, and opened it to the middle. 

 _I am much too alone in this world, yet not alone enough_  
 _to truly consecrate the hour._  
 _I am much too small in this world, yet not small enough_  
 _to be to you just object and thing,_  
 _dark and smart._  
 _I want my free will and want it accompanying_  
 _the path which leads to action;_  
 _and want during times that beg questions,_  
 _where something is up,_ _to be among those in the know,  
_ _or else be alone–_

Charles shut the book with a snap, gulping around the rebellious boulder in his chest. After several moments, he turned back to the page slowly, and read the rest of the poem in silence. He laid it open on the mantlepiece, and turned away.

Eyes traveling up and down the books, they finally rested on the very top shelf, and again the boulder rolled down the slopes of his body, massive and unyielding. Charles would recognize that mahogany box anywhere.

Charles walked to the bookcase and stared up the impressive height, cursing his 5'7” stature. Although the room was far from the richest in the house, the furniture was all heavy and ancient; he would never be able to move it. He would have to ask Mrs. Glenn for a stepladder in the morning.

Sighing, he turned around, and gave a very undignified squeak at the menacing shadow of the groundskeeper in the doorway.

“Goodness, you frightened me,” Charles choked out, still unable to speak properly around the swelling in his throat. The man was looking at him intently, but Charles avoided his gaze; he did not want to be pulled into whatever contempt he must be feeling for him – or even worse, pity that a full grown man would allow his stepfather to treat him as if he were still a boy of twelve.

 _I never really grew up_ , Charles thought suddenly, weary. _I just got older_.

Sizing up the man's not-unimpressive height, Charles said, “If it wouldn't be too much trouble, do you think you could get that box up there down for me? You look like the man for the job.”

Wordlessly, the groundskeeper strode forward and reached for the box. Despite having several inches on Charles, plus heavy work boots, he still had to go up on his toes, and even then it seemed a stretch. His canvas shirt pulled against his stomach, and Charles was shocked to see the miniscule width of it. He'd have thought the man would get enough food, the way he seemed to be in Kurt's favor.

With a grunt, the man fell back on his heels, box in hand. He offered it to Charles wordlessly.

Now that he had it in his hands, Charles was unsure what to do. It felt almost sacrilegious to open it without his father's permission, like robbing a pharaoh’s tomb. He looked up and found the groundskeeper still staring at him.

Awkwardly, he patted the lid of the box and set it aside. “Thank you very much, Mr. Lensherr,” he said, “you're a great help. I hope we'll have a chance to chat, but you see I'm quite tired. It was lovely to meet you.” Without meeting the man's eyes, Charles walked to the bed and flipped open his suitcase. He looked at the clothing inside – neatly folded, freshly pressed. These were outfits to lounge by the fire in, not go to war. In his heart, these pastimes had become one and the same.

The groundskeeper was still there. Charles was beginning to get uncomfortable, and contemplated opening himself to the man's mind, to ensure he bore no ill will. But no; Charles was less sure of his control now than he had been in decades. His own mind was more than enough.

“Good day, Mr. Lensherr,” he said pointedly, looking back into his suitcase. He remained tense until he heard the man begin to move towards the door (although he could barely perceive the footfalls; how did the man move like that, in such heavy boots?), and hummed a few bars of a half-remembered tune.

The footfalls stopped, and Charles heard a sharp intake of breath. He looked up, reaching the end of his patience, and found the man staring at him... _nakedly_ , like Charles had whipped him raw and open until the organs gleamed beneath his skin. Charles frowned, finally looking back into his eyes, seeing something so familiar but so long lost...

“Good day, Charles,” the man whispered, and left.

It was a full ten minutes before Charles found the breath to gasp his name back.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Another confrontation, and Charles realizes that his insecurities and repressed terrors are even more dangerous than they used to be. But a certain mutant's magnetism is stronger than fear, and Charles couldn't stay away if he tried.

It was the kind of day to write novels about – the first truly lovely dawn of a season that gleamed pink and brilliant across a scabbed over country. Charles stepped outside and almost couldn’t bear to breathe this air, open and fresh and clear like all the things he didn’t deserve, like all he had hid himself from. He had barely slept a wink the night before, and it was early – he passed maids he didn't know setting fires that were no longer needed, and he sighed in relief to find the library empty. He longed to ensconce himself in this refuge once more, to wander down the twisting aisles through the heavy velvet curtains and hide himself in the most secluded corner with a book that weighed as much as he did, and chase away the world. But he wouldn't fit in the alcoves between the shelves anymore, and these days he grew weary of reading, and something compelled him to go outside and breathe the clean and burning air.

He had meant to visit his mother before all else this morning, but he had awoken in such a state of terror, ice cold sweat pricking his neck, the specter of death hanging over him with mouth gaping and grey, he would never have been able to face a sickroom, let alone Sharon Xavier. He wondered, as he scrubbed himself viciously in the shower, if it had been a mere product of his over-stressed mind, or if dreams from elsewhere in the house had bled into his own. He didn’t know which terrified him more; for if it were the latter, he was fairly certain where it would have come from. If the former, he did not want to think or dwell on what a premonition of his mother's death would mean, and whether he would face it the rest of his life: waking with the sense of a spirit bearing upon his soul, bourbon heavy and sweltering, choking on the pearls around her neck. It was too Shakespearean for his tastes, and a bit presumptuous, considering she still lived and breathed and (most likely) cursed his name.

Almost as disturbing had been the flashes of something in between, the vision that finally woke him in the end – of some taut and nameless body wrapped in spirals around his limbs, burning with every touch but healing all the same, a fire that eviscerated before it consumed and burned away the barriers between his self and his Self, the great inner cavern even he did not know. Despite the copious amount of sex he partook in, he was never one for sex dreams unless they were skimmed from the consciousness of a bedmate (in which case he tried to stay as far removed as possible). This time, though – this one was different. It was as if the figure in his fantasy were not a separate being, but simply a hidden element of his own body, like a twin subsumed in the womb or freckles that emerge after time in the sun. 

Suffice it to say, even in the brisk morning sun with Earl Grey in his belly, he was trembling like a leaf; and it didn’t help that his throat was too swollen to even attempt a cigarette. Charles felt utterly wretched, and it wasn’t even noon.

It did not help to round a corner and find the man occupying his thoughts – far too many of his thoughts, more than his dying mother and his vanishing inheritance and the very sorry state of his own life – at the top of a ladder, cleaning the gutters above the kitchen.

Charles froze in his tracks and tried to force his addled brain into some kind of coherence.

The man had taken off both his shirt and undershirt, leaving only his canvas trousers, the suspenders dangling past his hips. His back, bronzed and healthy and broad, rippled in the sun beneath a sheen of sweat that pooled in the cavern at the base of his spine as he stretched his arms, gathering leaves that fluttered through the air and stuck to his shoulders and neck. If he did not know what to look for, Charles would not have been able to see it; but he always seemed to gather more detritus than he should have been able to reach, and every so often the sun glinted off the bending metal of the gutter. He paused and wiped his forehead and the back of his neck and Charles was nearly blown off his feet by the spike of longing he felt, to slough the moisture from his skin and pick away the leaves one by one, to comb them from his hair and the corners of his mouth. It was not the same surge he felt with a woman newly naked in bed, or when a wet and wanton mouth closed over him – it was like waking from a nightmare, pulsing from an ache deep inside, an open sore weeping memories and half-healed despairs. He pushed a hand against his stomach; for a moment, just this moment, the hardness of his cock was irrelevant as he tried to catch his breath and re-suture the rupture inside of him.

But he could not say that the heat surging through him came only from the morning sun, and he clamped his powers down tighter than ever, folding his sins deep and tight. He would not force another to bear them; not again. Not him. Bile roiled in Charles's stomach.

So embattled was he that he did not even think of hiding as the groundskeeper made his way down the ladder, wiped grime from his arms and rotated his shoulders, stretched his neck, turned around to see Charles watching him, wide-eyed and open. He did not seem surprised to find Charles there, and his eyes (stormy grey and wide as the sky and how had Charles not remembered them; of all things, that should have been the first) regarded Charles with a level of guarded contempt that he did not want to investigate. 

Too late, he realized that he had no idea what to say to this stranger before him. In his youth, he would have been earnest; in adulthood, he would be facetious; but neither course seemed right at this time, seemed like enough to convey what he needed it to – and how could words ever be enough, for twenty years of absence?

Still, there was Erik – and it _was_ Erik; he felt sick for missing it, for dismissing him because he was too tall and strong to be that little boy huddled in the snow, even though, even then, Charles had seen the strength in his shoulders and bones; and what must he think now looking at Charles, who remained small and pale with girlish lips and skin smooth from leisure, while Erik's was craggy and lined and learned as the sea – Erik, Erik, _Erik_ stared at him with his inscrutable eyes, mouth a tight, firm gash across his face. 

Where did all those lines come from? They were scars as surely as if they had been carved by a knife.

“Hello,” Charles said softly, voice barely a whisper, catching on more than the swelling of his throat. 

Erik's expression did not change, but Charles knew he heard him. He could not tell if Erik were equally at a loss for what to say, or if he aimed at some sort of punishment.

Then he spoke. “It seems you've brought me home after all, Charles.”

“What?” Charles gasped.

Erik regarded him again, silently, scornfully. “You really remember nothing, do you.”

“That's not true. Of course I remember,” Charles whispered.

“You didn’t remember me.”

“You've... changed.” 

Erik snorted. Charles felt a first flare of annoyance, and used its momentum to propel him a few steps closer. “And I was a bit preoccupied last night, in case you didn't notice. I would think you could forgive me for being distracted. What are you _doing_ here, Erik?”

“Working.”

“But _why_? How?”

“I need to eat. I saw an ad. I filled it.”

“That's not what I mean and you know it.”

“Are you angry with me?” Erik asked, raising a sardonic eyebrow and with his voice laced with scorn and oh, this was definitely not the Erik Charles had known.

“ _Baffled_ would be the more appropriate word.”

“Not an emotion familiar to you, I would think.”

“What?” Charles wanted to scrub a hand across his face and fall asleep for a few weeks; perhaps that would unscramble the mess this week were making of his head. “Ok, wait, can we just... start over? I've hardly slept in 72 hours and my brain feels like scrambled egg and how can I want to smack you over the head with a skillet when it is so unbelievably good to see you?”

“...It is?”

“Of course, you infuriating twat! It's... it's been twenty years. By God, I didn't even know if you were still alive!”

“Well. I'm here now.”

“Yes. Yes, you are.” Charles barely suppressed the tears threatening to rise from his chest. “God, Erik. God, I've missed you.”

“You have?” Erik said, his brow deeply knit.

“Of course I have!” Charles burst, surprising them both with the ferocity of it. “Of course, Erik, you– you really believe I could have just forgotten you? You were the only person who ever– without you I couldn't– I've missed you so much. More than anything.“

And in that blink, they were children again.

Erik took a hesitant step forward. “Charles, I –“

“Charles, there you are!” 

Charles and Erik flinched apart like a pair of guilty lovers, and looked back to the house to see Raven skipping towards them in a fluttering white dress. She had not forgotten Charles's request to stay clear of Kurt, but Raven had a new dress and a mansion to explore and damn her if an old man was going to get in her way.

Charles plastered a smile on his face and waved in greeting. He took a moment when Raven turned to her reflection in a window to glance back at Erik. He was already the taciturn groundskeeper again, pulling on his t-shirt and gathering the debris he had dragged from the gutter. A surge of anger towards Raven ran through Charles at the hunted look in Erik's eyes, the moment their gazes met in a surging pause before Erik turned away.

<<Meet me in the medical study. Please.>> No one observing would have thought the half-double-step in Erik's gait odd; but Charles felt a line of tension coil its way around Erik's spine and flinched along with him, drawing his gift swiftly back within his own body.

“Good morning, my dear, how did you sleep?”

“Like a ten year old version of Charles, I would think,” she said, hugging him. “My lord, it's a gorgeous day, isn't it. What were you and that Mr. Lensherr whispering so secretly about?”

“Nothing secret, I was simply saying hello. He was kind enough to help me reach a tall shelf last night.”

“If I knew that was all it took to enter your affections–“

“–then everything would be on the floor instead of neatly shelved. Have you had breakfast?”

“Yes, and a delightfully English one at that.”

“If he's free, why don't you have Jack take you for a ride around the country?”

“Are you sure you don't want me to stay with you today? You seem a bit peaky.”

“No, of course not, what have I to be upset about?”

Raven's expression faltered. “Well... your mother is dying.”

Charles felt the false mirth drain out of his own face, to be replaced with a sinking in his gut. “Well. Yes. There is that.” He took Raven's hands in his. “Believe it or not, I did mean this to be a vacation for you. Enjoy yourself. Wander into the boudoir of a wealthy duke and screw him silly. I'll have Dolly here if I absolutely cannot handle myself, and remember,” he tapped his temple, “I can always find you.”

Raven wrinkled her nose. “You do know how creepy I find that, right?”

“Which is why I do it.”

“Insufferable git.”

“Nagging nan.”

“Please take care of yourself, Charles. I mean it. I know you're a glutton for punishment, but it's not necessary. Not here.”

“I am not a glutton for punishment!”

Raven raised an eyebrow and turned to walk away.

“I'm not!”

“Whatever you say, Charles!” she waved over her shoulder. When she vanished, Charles felt profoundly empty. He spotted Erik's shirt lying forgotten on the grass and picked it up. If he sniffed at the collar, it was only to be sure the laundering services were adequate. 

He walked into the study half hoping Erik had not come, but there he was, standing still and silent by the window. There was something inherently _off_ about his presence in this place, and yet Charles felt as if he had never entered this room without Erik in waiting. It disturbed him, this mingling of past and present and events never come. He had always thought of all the minds to trust, there was his own; but he was coming to realize that his thoughts were a country more foreign than even his heart.

“Erik,” he said, because what else could he do.

The man turned to him without rush, the distance between them palpable and thick as jelly. 

Charles remembered how he would look up from a math set and find Erik staring at him much like this: like he could not believe the boy by his side, like it was impossible to comprehend his presence there or anywhere in a world he had long written off as lost. Charles remembered lacing their fingers together under their English desk, filching cookies just to make the other smile, sharing body heat in the long winter nights. From the harshness of his hands against his trousers, the tilt of his eyes and the far-off song of his mind, Charles knew Erik was remembering the same.

“You forgot your shirt.”

“...Thank you.”

When neither of them made a move, Charles walked forward slowly; when Erik did not shift his eyes from Charles's face, he lay the shirt on the sill beside them. They stood an arm's length apart, unyielding; Charles would not relent, and Erik would not budge.

In the end, it was easy.

Charles took the last step towards Erik and flung his arms around his neck, mindless of the moisture of his body or their place on the grounds or the sun in the sky, knowing only the years between them and how much they had lost. Sweat from Erik's skin soaked through Charles's shirt and he gasped at the intimacy of it, at the unmovable planes of his body and the smell of earth and sweat from the pores of his neck. 

For a moment Erik's hands hung in the air, unsure what to do; then, with an involuntary sound between a whimper and a groan he gripped Charles so hard his ribs creaked and pressed his face into his neck like he had done when they were children. But they weren't children, and Charles trembled beneath the power of the arms around him, at the width of chest, at the shivering terror he had refused to consider for so many years. He was frightened, but he couldn’t let go, and that frightened him too.

“Charles,” Erik murmured, and Charles felt something dangerous slide between them as Erik's knees buckled and there he was kneeling at Charles's feet, gripping him behind the knees and pressing his face into his thighs.

Charles suddenly became conscious of how very exposed they were in this active house, and what a sight they would look to any attending eyes. He patted Erik awkwardly on the head and said, “Erik, come now, please get up,” and Erik looked at him and Charles was hit with another dizzying wave of _something_ and then Erik was standing with his back to him, not wiping his face or shaking with sobs but Charles knew he was crying all the same, and he still stood tall and bold and unyielding. Hesitantly, Charles stepped forward until the broad shoulders blocked out the sun, and raised a hand, leaving it to hover in the space between his shoulder blades. He didn’t know if Erik could feel it, or if he wanted him to. But he couldn’t hold himself apart from the life flowing through this body, a light that burned through even his repressed awareness. When, breathless, he let his hand drift forward to touch – Erik sprang away as if he himself were burned.

Charles looked at him in astonishment and not a little hurt, but again, Erik refused to meet his eyes.

“Erik –“

“I have work to do,” he said gruffly, stooping to gather his shirt and yanking it around his body with a grunt as it got caught on his ears and elbows.

“Erik–“

“I need you to stay away from me Charles,” he said, still not looking at him, fumbling with the buttons on his shirt.

“But why must– bloody hell, here,” and Charles walked forward again and, slapping Erik's hands away roughly, made quick work of the stubborn buttons. “What in the world's gotten you so agitated you can't even button a bloody shirt–“ and then Charles looked up and there was Erik staring down at him, standing far closer than he remembered and each breath swelling warm on Charles's cheeks and a cloying heat enveloping them both.

He had already observed that Erik was well proportioned, had grown properly into his rangy limbs, but from this close he was unspeakably, unbearably handsome, for all his lines and harsh angles as arresting as a Bernini but doubly so, for no marble wore a pulse beneath the chin or stubble on its cheeks or the clenching and unclenching of an uneasy jaw. Wet heat pooled at the base of Charles's spine as Erik's eyes roamed across his face and the open collar of his shirt, eyes dark and predatory and reminiscent of dreams Charles had long forgotten, had forced himself to forget, of a powerful mouth and domineering hands and bruises scattered like stars across rumpled sheets and reddened thighs that glowed in the candlelight, _and a face, moon-white with lips soft as sin pressing kisses to hip and waist and thigh, carding through hair and smeared with moisture that gleamed, pale like the skin of his cheeks, the touch of his tongue_ –

–and Charles backed away hastily, shaking and bloodless and feeling as naked as a doe in the sun.

“Charles–“

“No, no you– you bloody don't– saints preserve us–“

“ _Sheyninke, schatz, bitte_ , –“

“You can't do that to me, Erik, I fixed that, I didn't mean to make you –“

“You didn't make me do anything, Charles; _b_ _eruhige dich_ , calm, calm down Charles, please, please... come here _schatz_ , come...” and Charles was cradled against Erik's chest, mouth gaping, sick to his stomach.

“Why are you frightened?” Erik whispered into his hair, cradling his head in his enormous palms.

But Charles couldn't speak of this, not this – it was the second of the Very Bad Things, not the worst but still awful, unspeakable. He just shut his eyes and leaned his weight against Erik, shuddering, revolted with himself, with the thoughts his perversion had planted in Erik's mind.

Slowly, though, wrapped in Erik's stern and sturdy presence, Charles did calm down, breathing in the familiar air that lost its brutal memories when entwined with the smell of Erik's clothing and skin. This was safe; this was the same; nothing more than childhood friends would share in a crowded street. For a moment, just a moment, he allowed himself to take hold of Erik's arms below the shoulder, through contact alone drawing the strength to keep himself upright. With a shuddering breath he stood and stepped away.

“I'm– God, I'm sorry Erik, you must think I'm a mess.”

“I don't,” he said quietly.

“It's just been... it's just all fucked, you know? Bloody tossing sodding fucked. A goddamn, Napoleonic, Vesuvius sized mess.” He patted at his vest and pants with shaky hands, and laughed, the sound far more strangled than he wished it would be. “You wouldn't happen to have a cigarette on hand would you? I bloody need one.”

Erik pulled a pack from his back pocket and tapped one out wordlessly. He evaded Charles's reaching hand and, without breaking eye contact, held it to Charles's lips and snapped his fingers; the contact sparked, and the butt flared to life.

Charles blinked. “Could you always do that?”

“Not always.” Erik lit a cig of his own and took a long, deep drag that hollowed his cheeks into caverns. “You couldn't always speak into my head.”

“Ah. Yes. Sorry about that. I didn't see any other way–“

“Is it a two way street?”

“Pardon?”

“Can you hear me speaking back at you? When you're in my mind?”

“If someone is thinking my name loudly enough, I will hear them. But if you mean when I spoke to you before... no, I couldn't hear anything. Being here, it... dampens my abilities, somewhat. It's a miracle I got that little bit across.”

“How is that possible?”

“Emotions effect your prowess, yes?” From the way Erik shifted and avoided his gaze, Charles took that as a yes. “I can freely admit that I do not feel safe here. I survived by hiding myself – in every way possible – and I suppose it's hard to kick the habit.”

Erik stared at him. “Why haven't you burned it down?”

Charles was halfway to laughing before he realized Erik was not joking. “What purpose would that serve?”

“Vengeance. For what you suffered.”

“But, vengeance? What is that? All I'd have would be a pile of ashes and a mountain of paperwork. Not to mention the police, the media, –“

“You could deter them. Better than I could. You could make them believe it was your step-father's fault and he would rot in jail for the rest of his life.”

Charles studied Erik, realizing they were not strictly talking about himself anymore.

“I don't think he deserves that,” Charles said slowly.

Erik shook his head incredulously. “Even with this–“ he brushed the bruises on Charles's neck, his hand lingering, “even with all the things you could never tell me – prison is the least of what he deserves for hurting you.”

“I don't believe any man belongs in a cage,” Charles said softly.

Erik flinched violently, and the shutters closed again over his eyes.

“I think you'll find that your step-father believes very differently,” he said darkly, pressing down on the bruise until Charles winced. He took the hand away, flexing his long fingers.

“What do you mean?” Charles asked, refusing to show weakness and sooth his abused skin.

Erik shook his head, closing down. “You'll find out soon enough,” he muttered.

“Must you talk in such riddles?”

“Enter my mind and take the why,” Erik challenged, glaring him down.

“I would rather you tell me.”

“Why?”

“You would resent me for it. You invite me, but you would resent it. Your mind is your own, Erik, not mine.”

Erik stared at him disbelievingly. “But you have the power to take it. If you want, if it's your wish, why would you not–“

“What would stop me from doing it every time?” Charles asked wearily. “If I didn't feel like carrying my wallet, I could have vendors hand over their wares. If I wanted a woman I could make her drop trou before she knew my face. I could have the king of England dance a jig in his trousers atop London Bridge. And I could make you forget everything about yourself – your name, your hopes, your fears – it would be like Erik Lensherr never existed. I might be doing that right now. I couldn’t know. I could crack you open with a pinky's worth of strength and not even realize until you started gibbering. So no, Erik, I will not enter your mind without permission, and even then... you do not want me in your head, Erik. Everyone who has has suffered for it.”

Erik stared at him, breathing heavily. 

“You can do all that?” he breathed, his eyes round like dinner plates.

Charles frowned. “Well... yes. I think I could. I have generally avoided putting such crimes into practice, you understand.”

“I thought you said that it's a gift,” Erik murmured, before shaking himself and regathering his self-composure. “Even so... yes. I would prefer you stay out.”

“Your will be done,” Charles said wearily, folding his disappointment low and tight.

“Where have _you_ been all this time?” Erik asked, making even such an innocuous question sound like condemnation.

“New York. I will take you there someday, Erik, it's brilliant, the happiest I've ever been,” he said, not even realizing the lie until it left his mouth, but suddenly acutely anxious of keeping Erik from discovering his worthlessness. “You would love it, I know you would. A lot of the city is old, but there are new structures in Midtown, skyscrapers, they're called, and bridges that span entire rivers – there's more metal in one block than I expect you've met in a lifetime!”

Erik looked at him oddly, and Charles realized how ridiculous he must sound. “Of course, I will have to be here for a while yet. Even when Sharon is gone, keeping the estate from Kurt will be like making snowballs in the Sahara. But after that – after that we'll go together.”

“Is it common for masters to take their groundskeepers on American escapades?” 

Charles realized that Erik was laughing at him. He colored. “We're more than that, you and I. We are, aren't we?”

“Between us, perhaps. Perhaps. I think that you'd be better fit to answer that question than I.”

“Why ever would you think that?”

“You've always known more than me. Especially about myself. About us.” Erik looked at the bruises on Charles's neck, at his wrists and hands; he flexed his own fingers and clenched his jaw. “In some ways more than others, I suppose.”

“I'm fairly sure you know me better than I know myself, with a gift or without one,” Charles admitted.

“Knew.”

“Pardon?”

“If that ever were true, it would not be now.”

“No. No, it might be.”

Erik gave him that look again, as if he could crawl inside his thoughts through brute force alone. “You're quite unhappy, aren't you?” Erik said, sounding surprised.

“Whatever gave you that notion? I'm perfectly content.”

One side of Erik's mouth quirked into a smirk. 

“Now I know you're lying.”

“What?”

“It's how you spoke to the maid, and the girl you're with. Why do you need everyone to think you're happy?”

“Now wait a minute – you heard me talking to Dolly?”

Erik shrugged, not even having the grace to look abashed. 

“I was curious as to whom the seldom-mentioned lord of the house was.” Erik smiled wolfishly; it was the same terrifying grin he had bourn as a child. “You sounded like an absolute _a_ _rschgeige_ to me.”

“I'm so glad to know the impression I make on others,” Charles muttered, a bit peeved.

“Not on others, Charles – just me.” Erik's smile gentled into something much softer, and the curling in Charles's stomach started up again.

Slowly, the moment faded, and Erik glanced at the watch on his wrist. It was a cheap, pathetic looking thing, but Charles was sure it kept better time than the finest Rolex.

“You must be off?”

“I have to repair the cooling system by nightfall.”

“You don't need that long, surely?”

“ _I_ don't,” Erik said, smirking. “But others would. You've lost your talent for unobtrusiveness, Charles.”

“I don't have as much pride in my talents as you.”

“You should, though,” Erik said, surprising both of them with his sudden intensity. Pushing past his own discomfort, Erik stepped forward and put a hand on Charles's cheek. “ _Never_ be ashamed of who you are,” Erik said fiercely, “no matter what anyone says or feels. Not even me. _Sie sind unbezahlbar_. Remember that.”

“I don't know what that means,” Charles said, feeling lightheaded.

“Remember it anyway.” Erik paused, and seemed to assess something in Charles's face. Before Charles, with all his faculties, could react, Erik leaned down and pressed a kiss to the corner of his mouth. Charles had only the time to observe a quirk to Erik's lip before he had stepped past and out the door. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm so sorry for the terrible cliffhanger I put you through, but hopefully this chapter makes up for it.
> 
> Some translations (I don't speak German or Yiddish, so if anyone notices an error, please feel free to correct me):
> 
> Sheyninke - beautiful one (Yiddish)  
> Schatz - treasure  
> Bitte - please  
> Beruhige dich - calm down  
> Arschgeige - arse violin (i.e. dipshit)  
> Sie sind unbezahlbar - you are priceless


End file.
